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Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

The Radeon HD 5850 uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs as well as 72 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which has GPU core speed of 925 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1500 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850 151 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT 185 Watts
Difference: 34 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 5850 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 192000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5850 128000 MB/sec
Difference: 64000 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT will be quite a bit (about 70%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5850. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 88800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5850 52200 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 36600 (70%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 XT is superior to the Radeon HD 5850, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT 29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850 23200 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 6400 (28%)

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

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Radeon HD 5850

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 7870 XT

Amazon.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

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Model Radeon HD 5850 Radeon HD 7870 XT
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year September 30, 2009 November 2012
Code Name Cypress PRO Tahiti LE
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 725 MHz 925 MHz
Memory Speed 4000 MHz 6000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 151 watts 185 watts
Bandwidth 128000 MB/sec 192000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 52200 Mtexels/sec 88800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 23200 Mpixels/sec 29600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1440(288x5) 1536
Texture Mapping Units 72 96
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 28 nm
Transistors 2154 million 4313 million
Bus PCIe 2.1 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.2 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 5850

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7870 XT

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

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.

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