GeForce FX 5800 vs Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | not rated | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Architecture | GCN 1.0 (2011−2020) | Rankine (2003−2005) |
| GPU code name | Tahiti | NV30 |
| Market segment | Desktop | Desktop |
| Design | reference | no data |
| Release date | 22 June 2012 (12 years ago) | 6 March 2003 (21 year ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $499 | $299 |
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 | 2048 | no data |
| Core clock speed | no data | 400 MHz |
| Boost clock speed | 1050 MHz | no data |
| Number of transistors | 4,313 million | 125 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 130 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 250 Watt | 44 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 134.4 | 3.200 |
| Floating-point processing power | 4.301 TFLOPS | no data |
| ROPs | 32 | 4 |
| TMUs | 128 | 8 |
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 | PCIe 2.1 x16 | no data |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | AGP 8x |
| Length | 274 mm | 213 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin | 1x Molex |
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 | DDR |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 128 MB |
| Memory bus width | 384 Bit | 128 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 1500 MHz | 400 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 288 GB/s | 12.8 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 | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort | 1x DVI, 1x VGA, 1x S-Video |
| 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 | DirectX® 11 | 9.0a |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | no data |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 1.5 (2.1) |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | N/A |
| Vulkan | - | N/A |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 22 June 2012 | 6 March 2003 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 128 MB |
| Chip lithography | 28 nm | 130 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 250 Watt | 44 Watt |
HD 7970 GHz Edition has an age advantage of 9 years, a 2300% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 364.3% more advanced lithography process.
FX 5800, on the other hand, has 468.2% lower power consumption.
We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and GeForce FX 5800. 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.
