Power Consumption & Temperatures
When compared to the previous generation Radeon HD 5870, the HD 6950 consumed the same amount of power. Considering that the newer card was on average 12% faster this is a positive result. Against the more expensive and faster Radeon HD 6970, it consumed 14% less power yet on average we found that it was only 10% slower.
Of course, the Radeon HD 6950 looks most impressive when compared to the GeForce GTX 470. Here the HD 6950 consumes 15% less power while on average delivering 18% more performance, but that was to be expected against the first generation Fermi-based GeForce.
The Radeon HD 6950 remained relatively cool for a high-end graphics card when load testing with FurMark as it reached 82 degrees. There's an obvious advantage when comparing against previous generation GPUs that were less efficient, while it's in sitting in line with the faster HD 6970 and the GeForce GTX 580.