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Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon HD 7950
Intro
The Radeon HD 7870 comes with a GPU clock speed of 1000 MHz, and the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM runs at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1280 Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1250 MHz on this particular card. It features 1792 SPUs along with 112 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.
Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks
Power Consumption (Max TDP)
| Radeon HD 7870 |
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175 Watts |
| Radeon HD 7950 |
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200 Watts |
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Memory Bandwidth
In theory, the Radeon HD 7950 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 7870 in general. (explain)
| Radeon HD 7950 |
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240000 MB/sec |
| Radeon HD 7870 |
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153600 MB/sec |
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Texel Rate
The Radeon HD 7950 is a little bit (about 12%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7870. (explain)| Radeon HD 7950 |
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89600 Mtexels/sec |
| Radeon HD 7870 |
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80000 Mtexels/sec |
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Pixel Rate
The Radeon HD 7870 should be a lot (about 25%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 7950, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)| Radeon HD 7870 |
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32000 Mpixels/sec |
| Radeon HD 7950 |
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25600 Mpixels/sec |
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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
Radeon HD 7870Amazon.com
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Radeon HD 7950Amazon.com
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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.
Specifications
| Model | Radeon HD 7870 | Radeon HD 7950 |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | AMD | AMD |
| Year | March 2012 | January 2012 |
| Code Name | Pitcairn XT | Tahiti Pro |
| Fab Process | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Bus | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Memory | 2048 MB | 1536 MB |
| Core Speed | 1000 MHz | 800 MHz |
| Shader Speed | N/A MHz | (N/A) MHz |
| Memory Speed | 1200 MHz (4800 MHz effective) | 1250 MHz (5000 MHz effective) |
| Unified Shaders | 1280 | 1792 |
| Texture Mapping Units | 80 | 112 |
| Render Output Units | 32 | 32 |
| Bus Type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Bus Width | 256-bit | 384-bit |
| DirectX Version | DirectX 11.1 | DirectX 11.1 |
| OpenGL Version | OpenGL 4.2 | OpenGL 4.2 |
| Power (Max TDP) | 175 watts | 200 watts |
| Shader Model | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Bandwidth | 153600 MB/sec | 240000 MB/sec |
| Texel Rate | 80000 Mtexels/sec | 89600 Mtexels/sec |
| Pixel Rate | 32000 Mpixels/sec | 25600 Mpixels/sec |
Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.
Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.
Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.
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