Riva 128 PCI vs ATI Radeon HD 5870

#ad 
Buy on Amazon
VS

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking597not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.60no data
Power efficiency2.13no data
ArchitectureTeraScale 2 (2009−2015)no data
GPU code nameCypressNV3
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date23 September 2009 (15 years ago)1 April 1997 (27 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$399 no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

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 cores1600no data
Core clock speed850 MHz100 MHz
Number of transistors2,154 million4 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm350 nm
Power consumption (TDP)188 Watt4 Watt
Texture fill rate68.000.1
Floating-point processing power2.72 TFLOPSno data
ROPs321
TMUs801

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-slot1-slot
Supplementary power connectors2x 6-pinNone

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 typeGDDR5SDR
Maximum RAM amount1 GB4 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1200 MHz100 MHz
Memory bandwidth153.6 GB/s1.6 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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort1x VGA, 1x DB13W3
HDMI+-

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX11.2 (11_0)5.0
Shader Model5.0no data
OpenGL4.41.0
OpenCL1.2N/A
VulkanN/AN/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 23 September 2009 1 April 1997
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 4 MB
Chip lithography 40 nm 350 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 188 Watt 4 Watt

ATI HD 5870 has an age advantage of 12 years, a 25500% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 775% more advanced lithography process.

Riva 128 PCI, on the other hand, has 4600% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 5870 and Riva 128 PCI. 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.

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


ATI Radeon HD 5870
Radeon HD 5870
NVIDIA Riva 128 PCI
Riva 128 PCI

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


3.9 227 votes

Rate Radeon HD 5870 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
4.6 10 votes

Rate Riva 128 PCI on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.