ION HX vs Radeon HD 5870

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Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in performance ranking567not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.55no data
ArchitectureTeraScale 2 (2009−2015)Tesla (2006−2010)
GPU code nameCypressION
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date23 September 2009 (14 years ago)3 June 2008 (16 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$399 no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

Detailed specifications

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores160016
Core clock speed850 MHz450 MHz
Number of transistors2,154 million282 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm65 nm
Power consumption (TDP)188 Watt20 Watt
Texture fill rate68.003.600
Floating-point performance2,720.0 gflopsno data

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).

InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16PCI
Length282 mmno data
Width2-slotIGP
Supplementary power connectors2x 6-pinno data

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 typeGDDR5System Shared
Maximum RAM amount1 GBSystem Shared
Memory bus width256 BitSystem Shared
Memory clock speed4800 MHzSystem Shared
Memory bandwidth153.6 GB/sno data

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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPortNo outputs
HDMI+no data

API compatibility

List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX11.2 (11_0)11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model5.04.0
OpenGL4.43.3
OpenCL1.2N/A
VulkanN/AN/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 23 September 2009 3 June 2008
Chip lithography 40 nm 65 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 188 Watt 20 Watt

ATI HD 5870 has an age advantage of 1 year, and a 62.5% more advanced lithography process.

ION HX, on the other hand, has 840% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 5870 and ION HX. 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.

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ATI Radeon HD 5870
Radeon HD 5870
NVIDIA ION HX
ION HX

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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Questions & comments

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