AMD Radeon HD 6950 vs AMD Radeon R7 M460 Comparison

The AMD Radeon R7 M460 and AMD Radeon HD 6950 represent two distinct eras of AMD mobile and desktop graphics, separated by over five years of architectural evolution. The R7 M460, a 2016 mobile part built on GCN 3.0, posts a Geekbench OpenCL score of 6612, while the 2010 desktop HD 6950, based on TeraScale 3, scores 6210. The head-to-head benchmark shows the R7 M460 winning by 6.5%, a modest margin that belies the substantial differences in their underlying designs, power requirements, and intended use cases.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher Geekbench OpenCL score?

A: The AMD Radeon R7 M460 scores 6612, which is 6.5% higher than the AMD Radeon HD 6950's 6210. This makes the R7 M460 the winner in the sole head-to-head benchmark comparison.

Q: How do these GPUs compare in memory bandwidth?

A: The HD 6950 has a significant advantage with 160.0 GB/s of bandwidth, compared to just 36.00 GB/s for the R7 M460. This is because the HD 6950 uses a 256-bit memory bus, while the R7 M460 is limited to a 64-bit bus.

Q: What are the transistor counts for each chip?

A: The HD 6950's Cayman chip contains 2,640 million transistors on a 389 mm² die, while the R7 M460's Meso chip has 1,550 million transistors on a much smaller 125 mm² die.

Q: Which GPU supports newer DirectX versions?

A: The R7 M460 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), while the HD 6950 is limited to DirectX 11.2 (11_0). This gives the R7 M460 a feature advantage for modern gaming APIs.

Q: What is the power consumption of the HD 6950?

A: The HD 6950 has a TDP of 200 W and requires a 550 W power supply, along with two 6-pin power connectors. In contrast, the R7 M460 has no listed TDP, reflecting its mobile design.

Q: How do their benchmark scores rank against all GPUs?

A: The R7 M460 sits in the 38th percentile, while the HD 6950 is in the 36th percentile. Both are mid-range performers, but the R7 M460 edges slightly ahead in overall standing.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are built on fundamentally different architectures from AMD. The R7 M460 uses the GCN 3.0 architecture with the Meso chip, while the HD 6950 employs the older TeraScale 3 architecture with the Cayman chip. This generational gap is reflected in their process nodes: the R7 M460 is fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC, whereas the HD 6950 uses a larger 40 nm process, also at TSMC.

Transistor density tells a clear story of manufacturing progress. The R7 M460 packs 12.4 million transistors per square millimeter, nearly double the HD 6950's 6.8M / mm². This density advantage allows the R7 M460 to achieve respectable performance from a much smaller die—125 mm² versus 389 mm² for the HD 6950—despite having fewer total transistors (1,550 million vs 2,640 million).

The compute resources differ dramatically. The HD 6950 fields 1,408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The R7 M460 offers only 384 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 8 ROPs. Despite this massive disparity in raw hardware, the R7 M460 manages to outperform its older rival in OpenCL, thanks to architectural efficiency. The R7 M460 also supports newer APIs, including DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170, whereas the HD 6950 tops out at DirectX 11.2 and OpenGL 4.4 with no Vulkan support.

Memory hierarchies also diverge sharply. Both cards have 2 GB of GDDR5, but the HD 6950's 256-bit bus provides 160.0 GB/s of bandwidth, dwarfing the R7 M460's 64-bit bus and 36.00 GB/s. The R7 M460 compensates with a higher effective memory clock of 4.5 Gbps, but the narrow bus remains a bottleneck for bandwidth-intensive workloads.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only benchmark in the comparison is Geekbench OpenCL, where the R7 M460 scores 6612 against the HD 6950's 6210. This translates to a 6.5% win for the R7 M460, a modest but decisive margin. For context, the R7 M460's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon HD 7730M (6581, 0.5% slower) and the Intel UHD Graphics P750 (6554, 0.9% slower), placing it in a tight cluster of mid-range performers. The HD 6950, meanwhile, is bracketed by the AMD FirePro W600 (6223, 0.2% faster) and NVIDIA Quadro K620 (6282, 1.1% faster), showing it competes with professional workstation parts from its era.

The 6.5% delta is notable given the HD 6950's overwhelming hardware advantage in shading units, texture units, and memory bandwidth. This suggests the R7 M460's GCN 3.0 architecture extracts far more efficiency per compute unit than TeraScale 3. The HD 6950's 2.253 TFLOPS of FP32 performance dwarfs the R7 M460's 786.4 GFLOPS, yet the OpenCL workload favors the newer architecture's scheduling and execution model.

Pixel and texture rates reinforce the HD 6950's theoretical superiority: it delivers 25.60 GPixel/s and 70.40 GTexel/s, while the R7 M460 manages only 8.192 GPixel/s and 24.58 GTexel/s. These figures suggest the HD 6950 should dominate in raw rasterization, but the OpenCL compute benchmark tells a different story, highlighting that architectural efficiency trumps brute force in this particular test.

Specification Differences

The most striking differences between these two GPUs lie in their physical and electrical specifications. The HD 6950 is a dual-slot desktop card measuring 286 mm in length, 126 mm in height, and 42 mm in width, requiring a 200 W TDP and a 550 W suggested power supply with two 6-pin connectors. The R7 M460, by contrast, is a mobile chip with no listed TDP, slot width, or power connector requirements.

Clock speeds also differ significantly. The R7 M460 has a base clock of 730 MHz and a boost clock of 1024 MHz, while the HD 6950 has no listed base or boost clocks. Memory clocks are similar in effective terms: the R7 M460 runs at 4.5 Gbps effective, while the HD 6950 runs at 5 Gbps effective. However, the HD 6950's wider 256-bit bus gives it over four times the bandwidth.

The bus interface differs as well. The R7 M460 uses PCIe 3.0 x8, while the HD 6950 uses the older PCIe 2.0 x16. Display outputs are only listed for the HD 6950, which offers 2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 2x mini-DisplayPort 1.2. The R7 M460's display outputs are not specified in the data.

Release dates show a six-year gap: the HD 6950 launched on December 13, 2010, with a launch MSRP of 299 USD, while the R7 M460 arrived on May 14, 2016, with no listed launch price. Both are now end-of-life products, and both have defined successors and predecessors in their respective product lines.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon R7 M460 wins in the compute benchmark, posting a 6.5% higher OpenCL score. It also wins on architectural modernity, supporting DirectX 12, Vulkan 1.2.170, and OpenGL 4.6, making it better suited for workloads that leverage these newer APIs. Its 28 nm process node and higher transistor density (12.4M / mm²) indicate superior manufacturing efficiency, and its mobile form factor with no power connector requirements makes it ideal for laptops and compact systems.

The AMD Radeon HD 6950 wins decisively on memory bandwidth with 160.0 GB/s versus 36.00 GB/s, and it has vastly more compute resources: 1,408 shading units, 88 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. Its pixel rate of 25.60 GPixel/s and texture rate of 70.40 GTexel/s are over three times higher than the R7 M460's, suggesting it would perform better in fill-rate-bound scenarios. The HD 6950 also has a wider 256-bit memory bus and a full PCIe 2.0 x16 interface, which may offer better data throughput in certain workloads.

For legacy application support, the HD 6950's display outputs (2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, 2x mini-DisplayPort 1.2) provide multi-monitor flexibility that is not documented for the R7 M460. Its 2.253 TFLOPS of FP32 compute significantly exceeds the R7 M460's 786.4 GFLOPS, making it potentially stronger for compute tasks that are not optimized for GCN's scheduling model.

The Verdict

The data clearly favors the AMD Radeon R7 M460 in the Geekbench OpenCL comparison, with a 6.5% higher score and a 38th percentile ranking versus the HD 6950's 36th. For users running modern applications that support DirectX 12 or Vulkan, the R7 M460 is the obvious choice, as it offers current API support and a more efficient architecture on a smaller, cooler process node.

However, the HD 6950 should not be dismissed. Its massive advantage in memory bandwidth (160.0 GB/s vs 36.00 GB/s) and raw fill rates (25.60 GPixel/s and 70.40 GTexel/s) makes it potentially superior for older games or workloads that depend on texture throughput rather than compute shaders. The HD 6950 also offers more shading units and TMUs, which could matter in scenarios where parallel resource count is the limiting factor.

For mobile users or those building a low-power system, the R7 M460 is the only viable option given its lack of power connector requirements and unspecified TDP. For desktop users with a 550 W power supply and space for a 286 mm dual-slot card, the HD 6950 provides a legacy solution with robust display outputs and higher theoretical throughput.

Ultimately, the R7 M460 wins the benchmark war, but the HD 6950 wins the specification war in several key areas. The choice depends on whether the user prioritizes modern API support and compute efficiency (R7 M460) or raw bandwidth and fill-rate capability (HD 6950). The 6.5% score difference is real but not overwhelming, and the HD 6950's strengths in traditional graphics metrics suggest it remains competitive for its era.