Radeon HD 5570 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7870, which has a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5570		43 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 132 Watts (307%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5570 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5570		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 124800 (433%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is quite a bit (more or less 515%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5570. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5570		13000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67000 (515%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be a lot (about 515%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 5570, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5570		5200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26800 (515%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.