ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire vs HD 7970M Crossfire

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Aggregate performance score

We've compared Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire and Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire, covering specs and all relevant benchmarks.

HD 7970M Crossfire
2012
200 Watt
16.01
+225%
ATI Mobility HD 5870 Crossfire
2010
2x1 GB DDR3, GDDR3, GDDR5, 120 Watt
4.93

HD 7970M Crossfire outperforms ATI Mobility HD 5870 Crossfire by a whopping 225% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

Primary details

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

Place in performance ranking336633
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
ArchitectureGCN (2011−2017)Terascale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code nameWimbledon XTBroadway-XT
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date1 May 2012 (12 years ago)7 January 2010 (14 years ago)

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 cores25601600
Core clock speed850 MHz700 MHz
Manufacturing process technology28 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)200 Watt120 Watt

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).

Laptop sizelargelarge

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 typeGDDR5DDR3, GDDR3, GDDR5
Maximum RAM amountno data2x1 GB
Memory bus width2x 256 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed4800 MHz1000 MHz
Shared memory--

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.111

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark performance comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

HD 7970M Crossfire 16.01
+225%
ATI Mobility HD 5870 Crossfire 4.93

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

HD 7970M Crossfire 31127
+139%
ATI Mobility HD 5870 Crossfire 13046

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

900p132
+149%
53
−149%
Full HD105
+90.9%
55
−90.9%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
+213%
8−9
−213%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 35−40
+177%
12−14
−177%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 24−27
+420%
5−6
−420%
Battlefield 5 50−55
+342%
12−14
−342%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 30−35
+191%
10−12
−191%
Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
+213%
8−9
−213%
Far Cry 5 35−40
+280%
10−11
−280%
Far Cry New Dawn 40−45
+214%
14−16
−214%
Forza Horizon 4 100−110
+232%
30−35
−232%
Hitman 3 30−35
+182%
10−12
−182%
Horizon Zero Dawn 80−85
+153%
30−35
−153%
Metro Exodus 55−60
+400%
10−12
−400%
Red Dead Redemption 2 40−45
+238%
12−14
−238%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 50−55
+194%
18−20
−194%
Watch Dogs: Legion 80−85
+76.1%
45−50
−76.1%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 35−40
+177%
12−14
−177%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 24−27
+420%
5−6
−420%
Battlefield 5 50−55
+342%
12−14
−342%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 30−35
+191%
10−12
−191%
Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
+213%
8−9
−213%
Far Cry 5 35−40
+280%
10−11
−280%
Far Cry New Dawn 40−45
+214%
14−16
−214%
Forza Horizon 4 100−110
+232%
30−35
−232%
Hitman 3 30−35
+182%
10−12
−182%
Horizon Zero Dawn 80−85
+153%
30−35
−153%
Metro Exodus 55−60
+400%
10−12
−400%
Red Dead Redemption 2 40−45
+238%
12−14
−238%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 50−55
+194%
18−20
−194%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 35−40
+111%
18−20
−111%
Watch Dogs: Legion 80−85
+76.1%
45−50
−76.1%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 35−40
+177%
12−14
−177%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 24−27
+420%
5−6
−420%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 30−35
+191%
10−12
−191%
Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
+213%
8−9
−213%
Far Cry 5 35−40
+280%
10−11
−280%
Forza Horizon 4 100−110
+232%
30−35
−232%
Hitman 3 30−35
+182%
10−12
−182%
Horizon Zero Dawn 80−85
+153%
30−35
−153%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 50−55
+194%
18−20
−194%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 35−40
+111%
18−20
−111%
Watch Dogs: Legion 80−85
+76.1%
45−50
−76.1%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 40−45
+238%
12−14
−238%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5 30−35
+244%
9−10
−244%
Far Cry New Dawn 24−27
+257%
7−8
−257%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 16−18
+300%
4−5
−300%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 12−14
+225%
4−5
−225%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 16−18
+325%
4−5
−325%
Cyberpunk 2077 9−10
+350%
2−3
−350%
Far Cry 5 18−20
+217%
6−7
−217%
Forza Horizon 4 85−90
+760%
10−11
−760%
Hitman 3 18−20
+111%
9−10
−111%
Horizon Zero Dawn 30−35
+200%
10−12
−200%
Metro Exodus 27−30
+1350%
2−3
−1350%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 30−33
+233%
9−10
−233%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 16−18
+325%
4−5
−325%
Watch Dogs: Legion 95−100
+216%
30−35
−216%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 24−27
+189%
9−10
−189%

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5 16−18
+433%
3−4
−433%
Far Cry New Dawn 12−14
+300%
3−4
−300%
Hitman 3 12−14
+1100%
1−2
−1100%
Horizon Zero Dawn 80−85
+1250%
6−7
−1250%
Metro Exodus 16−18
+700%
2−3
−700%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 14−16
+1400%
1−2
−1400%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 9−10
+200%
3−4
−200%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 8−9
+300%
2−3
−300%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 8−9
+300%
2−3
−300%
Cyberpunk 2077 3−4 0−1
Far Cry 5 9−10
+350%
2−3
−350%
Forza Horizon 4 21−24
+450%
4−5
−450%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 16−18
+300%
4−5
−300%
Watch Dogs: Legion 6−7
+500%
1−2
−500%

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 14−16
+180%
5−6
−180%

This is how HD 7970M Crossfire and ATI Mobility HD 5870 Crossfire compete in popular games:

  • HD 7970M Crossfire is 149% faster in 900p
  • HD 7970M Crossfire is 91% faster in 1080p

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

  • in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with 4K resolution and the High Preset, the HD 7970M Crossfire is 1400% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

  • Without exception, HD 7970M Crossfire surpassed ATI Mobility HD 5870 Crossfire in all 68 of our tests.

Pros & cons summary


Performance score 16.01 4.93
Recency 1 May 2012 7 January 2010
Chip lithography 28 nm 40 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 200 Watt 120 Watt

HD 7970M Crossfire has a 224.7% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 2 years, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

ATI Mobility HD 5870 Crossfire, on the other hand, has 66.7% lower power consumption.

The Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire is our recommended choice as it beats the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire in performance tests.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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AMD Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire
Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire
Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire

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.


2.1 19 votes

Rate Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire on a scale of 1 to 5:

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2.8 6 votes

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

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Questions & comments

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