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Radeon HD 5870 vs Radeon HD 6870
Intro
The Radeon HD 5870 comes with a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6870, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1050 MHz on this particular card. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 ROPs.
Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks
Power Consumption (Max TDP)
| Radeon HD 6870 |
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151 Watts |
| Radeon HD 5870 |
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188 Watts |
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Memory Bandwidth
In theory, the Radeon HD 5870 will be 14% faster than the Radeon HD 6870 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)
| Radeon HD 5870 |
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153600 MB/sec |
| Radeon HD 6870 |
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134400 MB/sec |
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Texel Rate
The Radeon HD 5870 will be much (more or less 35%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)| Radeon HD 5870 |
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68000 Mtexels/sec |
| Radeon HD 6870 |
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50400 Mtexels/sec |
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Pixel Rate
The Radeon HD 6870 should be just a bit (more or less 6%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 5870, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)| Radeon HD 6870 |
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28800 Mpixels/sec |
| Radeon HD 5870 |
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27200 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 5870Amazon.com
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Radeon HD 6870Amazon.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 5870 | Radeon HD 6870 |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | AMD | AMD |
| Year | September 23, 2009 | October 2010 |
| Code Name | Cypress XT | Barts XT |
| Fab Process | 40 nm | 40 nm |
| Bus | PCIe 2.1 x16 | PCIe x16 |
| Memory | 1024 MB | 1024 MB |
| Core Speed | 850 MHz | 900 MHz |
| Shader Speed | N/A MHz | (N/A) MHz |
| Memory Speed | 1200 MHz (4800 MHz effective) | 1050 MHz (4200 MHz effective) |
| Unified Shaders | 1600(320x5) | 1120 |
| Texture Mapping Units | 80 | 56 |
| Render Output Units | 32 | 32 |
| Bus Type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Bus Width | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| DirectX Version | DirectX 11 | DirectX 11 |
| OpenGL Version | OpenGL 3.2 | OpenGL 4.1 |
| Power (Max TDP) | 188 watts | 151 watts |
| Shader Model | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Bandwidth | 153600 MB/sec | 134400 MB/sec |
| Texel Rate | 68000 Mtexels/sec | 50400 Mtexels/sec |
| Pixel Rate | 27200 Mpixels/sec | 28800 Mpixels/sec |
Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It 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 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.
Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.
Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.
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