Radeon HD 6950 vs Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition

Radeon HD 6950
Memory: 2048Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 14 Dec 2010
Radeon HD 6950
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
Memory: 2048Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 5 Mar 2012
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition

Summary

Synthetic performance index

  • Radeon HD 6950
    100%
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    145%

Relative performance

Gaming performance index

  • Radeon HD 6950
    100%
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    131%

Relative performance

Reasons to consider Radeon HD 6950

Based on an outdated architecture (ATI TeraScale), there are no performance optimizations for current games and applications

Reasons to consider Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition

31% higher gaming performance.
This is a much newer product, it might have better long term support.
Supports Direct3D 12 Async Compute
Supports ReLive (allows game streaming/recording with minimum performance penalty)
Supports Mantle
Based on an outdated architecture (AMD GCN), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications

Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition

HWBench recommends Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition

The Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition is the better performing card based on the game benchmark suite used (42 combinations of games and resolutions).


Specifications

Core Configuration

Radeon HD 6950Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
GPU NameCayman (Cayman PRO)vsPitcairn (Pitcairn XT)
Fab Process40 nmvs28 nm
Die Size389 mm²vs212 mm²
Transistors2,640 millionvs2,800 million
Shaders1408vs1280
Compute Units22vs20
Core clock800 MHzvs1000 MHz
ROPs32vs32
TMUs88vs80

Memory Configuration

Radeon HD 6950Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
Memory TypeGDDR5vsGDDR5
Bus Width256 bitvs256 bit
Memory Speed1250 MHz
5000 MHz effective
vs1200 MHz
4800 MHz effective
Memory Size2048 Mbvs2048 Mb

Additional details

Radeon HD 6950Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
TDP200 wattsvs175 watts
Release Date14 Dec 2010vs5 Mar 2012

Raw Performance comparison

Pixel Rate

  • Radeon HD 6950
    25.60 GP/s
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    32.00 GP/s

GigaPixels - higher is better

Texel Rate

  • Radeon HD 6950
    70.40 GT/s
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    80.00 GT/s

GigaTexels - higher is better

Memory bandwidth

  • Radeon HD 6950
    160.00 GB/s
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    154.00 GB/s

GB/s - higher is better

Single precision performance

  • Radeon HD 6950
    2253.00 GFLOPs
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    2560.00 GFLOPs

GFLOPs - higher is better

Synthetic benchmarks

3DMark 11

  • Radeon HD 6950
    5710
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    8290

Points (higher is better)

Game benchmarks

Alan Wake

  • Radeon HD 6950
    50.8
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    62.1

FPS (higher is better)

Batman: Arkham City

  • Radeon HD 6950
    56.8
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    67.9

FPS (higher is better)

Battlefield 3

  • Radeon HD 6950
    35.9
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    53.8

FPS (higher is better)

Battlefield 4

DX11, Ultra Quality,2x MSAA,16x AF, HBAO

  • Radeon HD 6950
    29
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    50

FPS (higher is better)

Borderlands 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    69.3
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    111.1

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis

  • Radeon HD 6950
    34.6
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    41.8

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    34.4
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    48.6

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 3

DX11,Very High Quality, FXAA

  • Radeon HD 6950
    18
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    30

FPS (higher is better)

Diablo III

  • Radeon HD 6950
    100.6
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    102.5

FPS (higher is better)

Dragon Age II

  • Radeon HD 6950
    40.7
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    44.8

FPS (higher is better)

F1 2012

  • Radeon HD 6950
    58.7
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    76.6

FPS (higher is better)

Max Payne 3

  • Radeon HD 6950
    38.9
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    58.9

FPS (higher is better)

Medal Of Honor Warfighter

DX11, Ultra Quality, 4xMSAA

  • Radeon HD 6950
    28
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    43

FPS (higher is better)

Metro 2033

  • Radeon HD 6950
    21.3
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    23.4

FPS (higher is better)

Metro Last Light

DX11, AAA standard, 16xAF, Motion Blur normal, Tesselation normal

  • Radeon HD 6950
    22
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    32

FPS (higher is better)

Sleeping Dogs

  • Radeon HD 6950
    44.6
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    58.2

FPS (higher is better)

Sniper Elite V2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    45.3
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    57.2

FPS (higher is better)

STALKER: Call of Pripyat

  • Radeon HD 6950
    58.1
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    72.2

FPS (higher is better)

StarCraft II

  • Radeon HD 6950
    116.8
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    150

FPS (higher is better)

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

  • Radeon HD 6950
    54.2
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    68.9

FPS (higher is better)

Total War: Shogun 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    31.6
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    38

FPS (higher is better)

Unigine Heaven 2.0

  • Radeon HD 6950
    28.7
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    53

FPS (higher is better)

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

  • Radeon HD 6950
    59.6
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    79

FPS (higher is better)

Alan Wake

  • Radeon HD 6950
    32.6
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    38.9

FPS (higher is better)

Batman: Arkham City

  • Radeon HD 6950
    36.3
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    42.3

FPS (higher is better)

Battlefield 3

  • Radeon HD 6950
    22.3
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    33.2

FPS (higher is better)

Borderlands 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    43.8
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    47.1

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis

  • Radeon HD 6950
    21.1
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    25.7

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    20.9
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    29.5

FPS (higher is better)

Diablo III

  • Radeon HD 6950
    72
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    75.2

FPS (higher is better)

Dragon Age II

  • Radeon HD 6950
    28.5
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    31.1

FPS (higher is better)

F1 2012

  • Radeon HD 6950
    41.9
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    55.4

FPS (higher is better)

Max Payne 3

  • Radeon HD 6950
    27
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    39.9

FPS (higher is better)

Metro 2033

  • Radeon HD 6950
    14.5
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    16.6

FPS (higher is better)

Sleeping Dogs

  • Radeon HD 6950
    27.7
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    35.4

FPS (higher is better)

Sniper Elite V2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    30.4
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    37.4

FPS (higher is better)

STALKER: Call of Pripyat

  • Radeon HD 6950
    37.5
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    46.1

FPS (higher is better)

StarCraft II

  • Radeon HD 6950
    91.4
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    116.3

FPS (higher is better)

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

  • Radeon HD 6950
    29.5
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    48.9

FPS (higher is better)

Total War: Shogun 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    19.1
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    22.7

FPS (higher is better)

Unigine Heaven 2.0

  • Radeon HD 6950
    19.7
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    26.1

FPS (higher is better)

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

  • Radeon HD 6950
    41.6
  • Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
    53.2

FPS (higher is better)