Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs ATI HD 5850
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 615 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | 0.59 | no data |
| Power efficiency | 2.36 | no data |
| Architecture | TeraScale 2 (2009−2015) | GCN 1.0 (2011−2020) |
| GPU code name | Cypress | Tahiti |
| Market segment | Desktop | Desktop |
| Design | no data | reference |
| Release date | 30 September 2009 (15 years ago) | 22 June 2012 (12 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $299 | $499 |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.
Detailed specifications
General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 1440 | 2048 |
| Core clock speed | 725 MHz | no data |
| Boost clock speed | no data | 1050 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 2,154 million | 4,313 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 40 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 151 Watt | 250 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 52.20 | 134.4 |
| Floating-point processing power | 2.088 TFLOPS | 4.301 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 |
| TMUs | 72 | 128 |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Bus support | no data | PCIe 2.1 x16 |
| Interface | PCIe 2.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Length | 241 mm | 274 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | 2x 6-pin | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 1 GB | 3 GB |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 384 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 1000 MHz | 1500 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 128.0 GB/s | 288 GB/s |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.
| Display Connectors | 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort |
| Eyefinity | - | + |
| HDMI | + | + |
Supported technologies
Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.
| CrossFire | - | + |
| FreeSync | - | + |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 11.2 (11_0) | DirectX® 11 |
| Shader Model | 5.0 | 5.1 |
| OpenGL | 4.4 | 4.6 |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | N/A | - |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 30 September 2009 | 22 June 2012 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 1 GB | 3 GB |
| Chip lithography | 40 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 151 Watt | 250 Watt |
ATI HD 5850 has 65.6% lower power consumption.
HD 7970 GHz Edition, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 2 years, a 200% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.
We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. We've got no test results to judge.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
