ATI Rage XL vs Radeon HD 7870

VS

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking403not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation2.91no data
Power efficiency4.75no data
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2011−2020)Rage 3 (1997−1998)
GPU code namePitcairnRage 3
Market segmentDesktopWorkstation
Release date5 March 2012 (12 years ago)1 August 1998 (26 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$349 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 cores1280no data
Core clock speed1000 MHz125 MHz
Number of transistors2,800 million8 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm350 nm
Power consumption (TDP)175 Wattno data
Texture fill rate80.000.13
Floating-point processing power2.56 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 3.0 x16PCI
Length241 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 amount2 GB8 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit64 Bit
Memory clock speed1200 MHz83 MHz
Memory bandwidth153.6 GB/s664.0 MB/s
Shared memory-no 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 Connectors1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort1x VGA, 1x S-Video
Eyefinity+-
HDMI+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX12 (11_1)6.0
Shader Model5.1no data
OpenGL4.61.1
OpenCL1.2N/A
Vulkan1.2.131N/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 5 March 2012 1 August 1998
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 8 MB
Chip lithography 28 nm 350 nm

HD 7870 has an age advantage of 13 years, a 25500% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 1150% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 7870 and Rage XL. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Radeon HD 7870 is a desktop card while Rage XL is a workstation one.


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.


AMD Radeon HD 7870
Radeon HD 7870
ATI Rage XL
Rage XL

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.


3.7 640 votes

Rate Radeon HD 7870 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
3.8 18 votes

Rate Rage XL 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.