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Radeon HD 5870 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

The Radeon HD 5870 has a GPU clock speed of 850 MHz, and the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM is set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6970, which has core clock speeds of 880 MHz on the GPU, and 1375 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1536 SPUs along with 96 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870 188 Watts
Radeon HD 6970 250 Watts
Difference: 62 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6970 should be 15% quicker than the Radeon HD 5870 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970 176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870 153600 MB/sec
Difference: 22400 (15%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (approximately 24%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5870. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970 84480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5870 68000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 16480 (24%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 will be a little bit (approximately 4%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5870, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970 28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5870 27200 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 960 (4%)

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 5870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6970

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.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 5870 Radeon HD 6970
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year September 23, 2009 December 2010
Code Name Cypress XT Cayman XT
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 850 MHz 880 MHz
Memory Speed 4800 MHz 5500 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 188 watts 250 watts
Bandwidth 153600 MB/sec 176000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 68000 Mtexels/sec 84480 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 27200 Mpixels/sec 28160 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1600(320x5) 1536
Texture Mapping Units 80 96
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 40 nm
Transistors 2154 million 2640 million
Bus PCIe 2.1 x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.2 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the 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 card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 5870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6970

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.

Comments

One Response to “Radeon HD 5870 vs Radeon HD 6970”
PCHelper.nl || Advies nodig voor sapphire 5870 1 gb, GDDR5 (game edition) says:

[...] presteert die kaart beter en kan die wel op mijn systeem en die vorige niet. Ter vergelijking: http://www.hwcompare.com/6353/radeon...adeon-hd-6970/ Dan zou je toch zeggen dat die hd 6970 ook teveel wordt? Of snap ik het verkeerd [...]

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