Compare any two graphics cards:

Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

The Radeon HD 5850 features a clock frequency of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs, 72 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7850, which makes use of a 28 nm design. ATi has set the core speed at 860 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1200 MHz on this specific card. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7850, in theory, should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5850 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be just a bit (approximately 5%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5850. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2840 (5%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7850 is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4320 (19%)

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

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords, and might not be the exact same card listed on this page. We have no control over the accuracy of their search results.

Radeon HD 5850

Amazon.com

Other US-based stores

Radeon HD 7850

Amazon.com

Other US-based stores

Specifications

Model	Radeon HD 5850	Radeon HD 7850
Manufacturer	ATi	ATi
Year	September 30, 2009	March 2012
Code Name	Cypress PRO	Pitcairn Pro
Fab Process	40 nm	28 nm
Bus	PCIe 2.1 x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
Memory	1024 MB	2048 MB
Core Speed	725 MHz	860 MHz
Shader Speed	N/A MHz	(N/A) MHz
Memory Speed	1000 MHz (4000 MHz effective)	1200 MHz (4800 MHz effective)
Unified Shaders	1440(288x5)	1024
Texture Mapping Units	72	64
Render Output Units	32	32
Bus Type	GDDR5	GDDR5
Bus Width	256-bit	256-bit
DirectX Version	DirectX 11	DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.2	OpenGL 4.2
Power (Max TDP)	151 watts	130 watts
Shader Model	5.0	5.0
Bandwidth	128000 MB/sec	153600 MB/sec
Texel Rate	52200 Mtexels/sec	55040 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	23200 Mpixels/sec	27520 Mpixels/sec

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

Comments

3 Responses to “Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 7850”

GPU Upgrade - Need Suggestions! says:

July 10, 2012 at 10:22 am

[...] better performer as well as a better overclocker (if you overclock ofcourse). Check out this link- Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 7850 – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare Please note that it is completely theoretical and the real world performance may differ. Also [...]

Terrence says:

November 15, 2013 at 2:57 pm

Hey Im looking at possibly upgrading my video card in couple of months.
I currently have radeon hd 5850 and was wondering whats the main difference when cards say core speed and memory speed?
I see cheaper cards on the market have the same core speed but are DDR2 instead of 3.

larsV12 says:

December 4, 2013 at 10:00 am

@Terrence .. core (clock) speed like any of the other measures of performance in gfx cards is all relative. You mention lesser cards having "the same core speed" .. and that's actually incorrect across each generation iteration of DDR & GDDR vRAM types. That's to say, a gfx card with 1GB of DDR2 vRAM will essentially perform no better than a card with 512MB's of GDDR3 vRAM. You see, the premise being that each generation of DDR roughly doubles the speed of the generation before. So, put another way, 1 GB of GDDR3 will perform at only half the speed of 1 GB of GDDR5. So, it's like this, DDR2 & DDR3?? Forget it .. they're yesterday's tech' - and a complete waste of time even thinking about (let alone discussing). If you're after a budget upgrade in the RED corner, i'd advise a HD6950 2GB - or better still a 6970, at the very least. If you're looking at the GREEN team, consider at least a GTX 480 or GTX 580. As all of those cards are getting relatively old now (but each still supporting DX 11 & all having GDDR5 vRAM), you should be able to pick up a bargain from either the GREEN or RED Team on any one of those cards i've named

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