Radeon HD 6850 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6870, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1050 MHz on this specific model. It features 1120 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
Radeon HD 6850		2395 points
	Difference: 475 (20%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6870 will be 5% faster than the Radeon HD 6850 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (5%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be much (approximately 35%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13200 (35%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is a bit (about 16%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 6850, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (16%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.