Radeon HD 6950 vs Radeon HD 7970

Radeon HD 6950
Memory: 2048Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 14 Dec 2010
Radeon HD 6950
Radeon HD 7970
Memory: 3072Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 22 Dec 2011
Radeon HD 7970

Summary

Synthetic performance index

  • Radeon HD 6950
    100%
  • Radeon HD 7970
    188%

Relative performance

Gaming performance index

  • Radeon HD 6950
    100%
  • Radeon HD 7970
    176%

Relative performance

Reasons to consider Radeon HD 6950

50 watts lower power draw. This might be a strong point if your current power supply is not enough to handle the Radeon HD 7970 .
Based on an outdated architecture (ATI TeraScale), there are no performance optimizations for current games and applications

Reasons to consider Radeon HD 7970

76% 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Based on an outdated architecture (AMD GCN), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications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 7970

HWBench recommends Radeon HD 7970

The Radeon HD 7970 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 7970
GPU NameCayman (Cayman PRO)vsTahiti (Tahiti XT)
Fab Process40 nmvs28 nm
Die Size389 mm²vs352 mm²
Transistors2,640 millionvs4,313 million
Shaders1408vs2048
Compute Units22vs32
Core clock800 MHzvs925 MHz
ROPs32vs32
TMUs88vs128

Memory Configuration

Radeon HD 6950Radeon HD 7970
Memory TypeGDDR5vsGDDR5
Bus Width256 bitvs384 bit
Memory Speed1250 MHz
5000 MHz effective
vs1375 MHz
5500 MHz effective
Memory Size2048 Mbvs3072 Mb

Additional details

Radeon HD 6950Radeon HD 7970
TDP200 wattsvs250 watts
Release Date14 Dec 2010vs22 Dec 2011

Raw Performance comparison

Pixel Rate

  • Radeon HD 6950
    25.60 GP/s
  • Radeon HD 7970
    29.60 GP/s

GigaPixels - higher is better

Texel Rate

  • Radeon HD 6950
    70.40 GT/s
  • Radeon HD 7970
    118.00 GT/s

GigaTexels - higher is better

Memory bandwidth

  • Radeon HD 6950
    160.00 GB/s
  • Radeon HD 7970
    264.00 GB/s

GB/s - higher is better

Single precision performance

  • Radeon HD 6950
    2253.00 GFLOPs
  • Radeon HD 7970
    3789.00 GFLOPs

GFLOPs - higher is better

Synthetic benchmarks

3DMark 11

  • Radeon HD 6950
    5710
  • Radeon HD 7970
    10760

Points (higher is better)

Game benchmarks

Alan Wake

  • Radeon HD 6950
    50.8
  • Radeon HD 7970
    83.2

FPS (higher is better)

Batman: Arkham City

  • Radeon HD 6950
    56.8
  • Radeon HD 7970
    92.4

FPS (higher is better)

Battlefield 3

  • Radeon HD 6950
    35.9
  • Radeon HD 7970
    71.8

FPS (higher is better)

Battlefield 4

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

  • Radeon HD 6950
    29
  • Radeon HD 7970
    67

FPS (higher is better)

Borderlands 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    69.3
  • Radeon HD 7970
    74.8

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis

  • Radeon HD 6950
    34.6
  • Radeon HD 7970
    55.1

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    34.4
  • Radeon HD 7970
    64.6

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 3

DX11,Very High Quality, FXAA

  • Radeon HD 6950
    18
  • Radeon HD 7970
    40

FPS (higher is better)

Diablo III

  • Radeon HD 6950
    100.6
  • Radeon HD 7970
    153.8

FPS (higher is better)

Dragon Age II

  • Radeon HD 6950
    40.7
  • Radeon HD 7970
    60.3

FPS (higher is better)

F1 2012

  • Radeon HD 6950
    58.7
  • Radeon HD 7970
    99.9

FPS (higher is better)

Max Payne 3

  • Radeon HD 6950
    38.9
  • Radeon HD 7970
    71.7

FPS (higher is better)

Medal Of Honor Warfighter

DX11, Ultra Quality, 4xMSAA

  • Radeon HD 6950
    28
  • Radeon HD 7970
    60

FPS (higher is better)

Metro 2033

  • Radeon HD 6950
    21.3
  • Radeon HD 7970
    34.6

FPS (higher is better)

Metro Last Light

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

  • Radeon HD 6950
    22
  • Radeon HD 7970
    43

FPS (higher is better)

Sleeping Dogs

  • Radeon HD 6950
    44.6
  • Radeon HD 7970
    77.7

FPS (higher is better)

Sniper Elite V2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    45.3
  • Radeon HD 7970
    79.5

FPS (higher is better)

STALKER: Call of Pripyat

  • Radeon HD 6950
    58.1
  • Radeon HD 7970
    94

FPS (higher is better)

StarCraft II

  • Radeon HD 6950
    116.8
  • Radeon HD 7970
    168.7

FPS (higher is better)

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

  • Radeon HD 6950
    54.2
  • Radeon HD 7970
    79.4

FPS (higher is better)

Total War: Shogun 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    31.6
  • Radeon HD 7970
    53.5

FPS (higher is better)

Unigine Heaven 2.0

  • Radeon HD 6950
    28.7
  • Radeon HD 7970
    68.7

FPS (higher is better)

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

  • Radeon HD 6950
    59.6
  • Radeon HD 7970
    94.3

FPS (higher is better)

Alan Wake

  • Radeon HD 6950
    32.6
  • Radeon HD 7970
    59.4

FPS (higher is better)

Batman: Arkham City

  • Radeon HD 6950
    36.3
  • Radeon HD 7970
    59.5

FPS (higher is better)

Battlefield 3

  • Radeon HD 6950
    22.3
  • Radeon HD 7970
    45.3

FPS (higher is better)

Borderlands 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    43.8
  • Radeon HD 7970
    66.3

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis

  • Radeon HD 6950
    21.1
  • Radeon HD 7970
    34.9

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    20.9
  • Radeon HD 7970
    40.9

FPS (higher is better)

Diablo III

  • Radeon HD 6950
    72
  • Radeon HD 7970
    111.9

FPS (higher is better)

Dragon Age II

  • Radeon HD 6950
    28.5
  • Radeon HD 7970
    42.6

FPS (higher is better)

F1 2012

  • Radeon HD 6950
    41.9
  • Radeon HD 7970
    74.8

FPS (higher is better)

Max Payne 3

  • Radeon HD 6950
    27
  • Radeon HD 7970
    49.5

FPS (higher is better)

Metro 2033

  • Radeon HD 6950
    14.5
  • Radeon HD 7970
    23.5

FPS (higher is better)

Sleeping Dogs

  • Radeon HD 6950
    27.7
  • Radeon HD 7970
    48.9

FPS (higher is better)

Sniper Elite V2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    30.4
  • Radeon HD 7970
    53.2

FPS (higher is better)

STALKER: Call of Pripyat

  • Radeon HD 6950
    37.5
  • Radeon HD 7970
    60.9

FPS (higher is better)

StarCraft II

  • Radeon HD 6950
    91.4
  • Radeon HD 7970
    136.9

FPS (higher is better)

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

  • Radeon HD 6950
    29.5
  • Radeon HD 7970
    69.6

FPS (higher is better)

Total War: Shogun 2

  • Radeon HD 6950
    19.1
  • Radeon HD 7970
    32.8

FPS (higher is better)

Unigine Heaven 2.0

  • Radeon HD 6950
    19.7
  • Radeon HD 7970
    48.7

FPS (higher is better)

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

  • Radeon HD 6950
    41.6
  • Radeon HD 7970
    67

FPS (higher is better)