Radeon HD 6950 vs Radeon HD 7870M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 6950 and Radeon HD 7870M, there are a couple of things to consider. Cards with more VRAM in general perform better and allow you to play on higher graphics settings. Size also makes a difference. A model with a large heatsink can occupy up to three expansion slots on a motherboard. Be sure you have enough room in your PC case. When comparing GPUs with different architectures, more processing cores and even higher TFLOPS will not always translate to better performance. To help you decide which GPU you need, we have measured frame rates in a number of popular games. For more on how the Radeon HD 6950 stacks up against Radeon HD 7870M, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 7870M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon HD 7870M is only used in laptop graphics. It has lower GPU clock speed compared to the desktop variant, which results in lower power consumption, but also 10-30% lower gaming performance. Check available laptop models with Radeon HD 7870M here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6950 Radeon HD 7870M
Power consumption (TDP) 500 Watt 45 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 6950 has 1011% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 7870M.
  • Radeon HD 6950 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 7870M uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 6950 and Radeon HD 7870M have maximum RAM of 2 GB.
  • Radeon HD 6950 is used in Desktops, and Radeon HD 7870M - in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 6950 is build with TeraScale 3 architecture, and Radeon HD 7870M - with GCN.
  • Radeon HD 6950 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 7870M - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7870M is 2750 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6950.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 14−16 6−7
ultra / 1080p 8−9 4−5
QHD / 1440p 3−4 0−1
low / 720p 27−30 16−18
medium / 1080p 16−18 8−9
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 6950 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 88% more, than Radeon HD 7870M.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6950 Radeon HD 7870M
Architecture TeraScale 3 GCN
Code name Cayman Heathrow XT
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 14 December 2010 24 April 2012
Pipelines 1408 640
Core clock speed 800 MHz
Boost Clock 800 MHz
Transistor count 2,640 million 1,500 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 70.40 32.00
Floating-point performance 2,252.8 gflops 1,024 gflops
Length 267 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 1250 MHz 4000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 64 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.0 5.1
OpenGL 4.4 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan 1.2.131
Bus support PCIe 2.0 x16
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 244 Mh/s
Laptop size large
Eyefinity +
Design reference
CrossFire +
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