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Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 6950
Intro
The Radeon HD 5850 features core speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs along with 72 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6950, which comes with a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.
Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks
Power Consumption (Max TDP)
| Radeon HD 5850 |
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151 Watts |
| Radeon HD 6950 |
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200 Watts |
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Memory Bandwidth
The Radeon HD 6950 should in theory perform much faster than the Radeon HD 5850 in general. (explain)
| Radeon HD 6950 |
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160000 MB/sec |
| Radeon HD 5850 |
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128000 MB/sec |
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Texel Rate
The Radeon HD 6950 is quite a bit (approximately 35%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 5850. (explain)| Radeon HD 6950 |
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70400 Mtexels/sec |
| Radeon HD 5850 |
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52200 Mtexels/sec |
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Pixel Rate
The Radeon HD 6950 is just a bit (more or less 10%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 5850, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)| Radeon HD 6950 |
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25600 Mpixels/sec |
| Radeon HD 5850 |
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23200 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
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 5850Amazon.com
Other US-based stores
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.de
Amazon.fr
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Radeon HD 6950Amazon.com
Other US-based stores
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.de
Amazon.fr
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Specifications
| Model | Radeon HD 5850 | Radeon HD 6950 |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | ATi | ATi |
| Year | September 30, 2009 | December 2010 |
| Code Name | Cypress PRO | Cayman Pro |
| Fab Process | 40 nm | 40 nm |
| Bus | PCIe 2.1 x16 | PCIe x16 |
| Memory | 1024 MB | 1024 MB |
| Core Speed | 725 MHz | 800 MHz |
| Shader Speed | N/A MHz | (N/A) MHz |
| Memory Speed | 1000 MHz | 1250 MHz |
| Unified Shaders | 1440(288x5) | 1408 |
| Texture Mapping Units | 72 | 88 |
| 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) | 151 watts | 200 watts |
| Shader Model | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Bandwidth | 128000 MB/sec | 160000 MB/sec |
| Texel Rate | 52200 Mtexels/sec | 70400 Mtexels/sec |
| Pixel Rate | 23200 Mpixels/sec | 25600 Mpixels/sec |
Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.
Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.
Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.
Comments
One Response to “Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 6950”Interesting article, thanks a lot!