ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 vs HD 7970M

Place in the ranking	473	781
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Power efficiency	6.43	4.13
Architecture	GCN 1.0 (2011−2020)	TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code name	Wimbledon	Broadway
Market segment	Laptop	Laptop
Release date	24 April 2012 (12 years ago)	7 January 2010 (14 years ago)

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	1280	800
Core clock speed	850 MHz	700 MHz
Number of transistors	2,800 million	1,040 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	100 Watt	50 Watt
Texture fill rate	68.00	28.00
Floating-point processing power	2.176 TFLOPS	1.12 TFLOPS
ROPs	32	16
TMUs	80	40

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 size	large	large
Interface	MXM-B (3.0)	MXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectors	None	no 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 type	GDDR5	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	1 GB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	128 Bit
Memory clock speed	1200 MHz	1000 MHz
Memory bandwidth	153.6 GB/s	64 GB/s
Shared memory	-	-

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

No outputs

API compatibility

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

DirectX	12 (11_1)	11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model	5.1	5.0
OpenGL	4.6	4.4
OpenCL	1.2	1.2
Vulkan	1.2.131	N/A

Synthetic benchmark performance

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

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark 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 9.23
+212%

ATI Mobility HD 5870 2.96

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 21938
+174%

ATI Mobility HD 5870 7999

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:

900p	84 +171%	31 −171%
Full HD	61 +56.4%	39 −56.4%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

14−16
+133%

6−7

−133%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	21−24 +144%	9−10 −144%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	12−14 +1200%	1−2 −1200%
Battlefield 5	27−30 +460%	5−6 −460%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	18−20 +171%	7−8 −171%
Cyberpunk 2077	14−16 +133%	6−7 −133%
Far Cry 5	21−24 +250%	6−7 −250%
Far Cry New Dawn	24−27 +225%	8−9 −225%
Forza Horizon 4	60−65 +281%	16−18 −281%
Hitman 3	16−18 +113%	8−9 −113%
Horizon Zero Dawn	50−55 +132%	21−24 −132%
Metro Exodus	27−30 +833%	3−4 −833%
Red Dead Redemption 2	24−27 +257%	7−8 −257%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	30−33 +150%	12−14 −150%
Watch Dogs: Legion	60−65 +53.8%	35−40 −53.8%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	21−24 +144%	9−10 −144%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	12−14 +1200%	1−2 −1200%
Battlefield 5	27−30 +460%	5−6 −460%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	18−20 +171%	7−8 −171%
Cyberpunk 2077	14−16 +133%	6−7 −133%
Far Cry 5	21−24 +250%	6−7 −250%
Far Cry New Dawn	24−27 +225%	8−9 −225%
Forza Horizon 4	60−65 +281%	16−18 −281%
Hitman 3	16−18 +113%	8−9 −113%
Horizon Zero Dawn	50−55 +132%	21−24 −132%
Metro Exodus	27−30 +833%	3−4 −833%
Red Dead Redemption 2	24−27 +257%	7−8 −257%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	30−33 +150%	12−14 −150%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	24−27 +78.6%	14−16 −78.6%
Watch Dogs: Legion	60−65 +53.8%	35−40 −53.8%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	21−24 +144%	9−10 −144%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	12−14 +1200%	1−2 −1200%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	18−20 +171%	7−8 −171%
Cyberpunk 2077	14−16 +133%	6−7 −133%
Far Cry 5	21−24 +250%	6−7 −250%
Forza Horizon 4	60−65 +281%	16−18 −281%
Hitman 3	16−18 +113%	8−9 −113%
Horizon Zero Dawn	50−55 +132%	21−24 −132%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	30−33 +150%	12−14 −150%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	24−27 +78.6%	14−16 −78.6%
Watch Dogs: Legion	60−65 +53.8%	35−40 −53.8%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

24−27
+257%

7−8

−257%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	18−20 +260%	5−6 −260%
Far Cry New Dawn	14−16 +250%	4−5 −250%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	9−10 +200%	3−4 −200%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	5−6 +400%	1−2 −400%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	9−10 +350%	2−3 −350%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 +300%	1−2 −300%
Far Cry 5	10−12 +267%	3−4 −267%
Forza Horizon 4	35−40 +225%	12−14 −225%
Hitman 3	12−14 +50%	8−9 −50%
Horizon Zero Dawn	18−20 +171%	7−8 −171%
Metro Exodus	12−14 +225%	4−5 −225%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 +233%	3−4 −233%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	8−9 +300%	2−3 −300%
Watch Dogs: Legion	55−60 +222%	18−20 −222%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

14−16
+150%

6−7

−150%

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5	8−9 +700%	1−2 −700%
Far Cry New Dawn	6−7 +200%	2−3 −200%
Hitman 3	5−6 +400%	1−2 −400%
Horizon Zero Dawn	35−40 +270%	10−11 −270%
Metro Exodus	7−8 +250%	2−3 −250%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	6−7 +500%	1−2 −500%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	5−6 +150%	2−3 −150%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	4−5 +300%	1−2 −300%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	4−5 +300%	1−2 −300%
Cyberpunk 2077	1−2	0−1
Far Cry 5	5−6 +400%	1−2 −400%
Forza Horizon 4	10−12	0−1
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	5−6 +400%	1−2 −400%
Watch Dogs: Legion	3−4 +200%	1−2 −200%

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

9−10
+125%

4−5

−125%

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

HD 7970M is 171% faster in 900p
HD 7970M is 56% faster in 1080p

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

in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, with 1080p resolution and the Medium Preset, the HD 7970M is 1200% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

Without exception, HD 7970M surpassed ATI Mobility HD 5870 in all 61 of our tests.

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	9.23	2.96
Recency	24 April 2012	7 January 2010
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	1 GB
Chip lithography	28 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	100 Watt	50 Watt

HD 7970M has a 211.8% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 2 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

ATI Mobility HD 5870, on the other hand, has 100% lower power consumption.

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

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