Radeon HD 5670 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5870, which comes with a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 127 Watts (208%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 5870 should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 5670 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (140%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be a lot (about 339%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52500 (339%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be a lot (approximately 339%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 5670, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21000 (339%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.