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Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

The Radeon HD 5850 makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs as well as 72 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7850, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 860 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1200 MHz on this specific model. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850 130 Watts
Radeon HD 5850 151 Watts
Difference: 21 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7850 should theoretically be a little bit superior to the Radeon HD 5850 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850 153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5850 128000 MB/sec
Difference: 25600 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be a small bit (about 5%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5850. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850 55040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5850 52200 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 2840 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be a small bit (more or less 19%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 5850, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850 27520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850 23200 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 4320 (19%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

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Radeon HD 5850

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 7850

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 5850 Radeon HD 7850
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year September 30, 2009 March 2012
Code Name Cypress PRO Pitcairn Pro
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 725 MHz 860 MHz
Memory Speed 4000 MHz 4800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 151 watts 130 watts
Bandwidth 128000 MB/sec 153600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 52200 Mtexels/sec 55040 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 23200 Mpixels/sec 27520 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1440(288x5) 1024
Texture Mapping Units 72 64
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 28 nm
Transistors 2154 million 2800 million
Bus PCIe 2.1 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.2 OpenGL 4.2

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 5850

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7850

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

3 Responses to “Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 7850”
GPU Upgrade - Need Suggestions! says:

[...] better performer as well as a better overclocker (if you overclock ofcourse). Check out this link- Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 7850 – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare Please note that it is completely theoretical and the real world performance may differ. Also [...]

Terrence says:

Hey Im looking at possibly upgrading my video card in couple of months.
I currently have radeon hd 5850 and was wondering whats the main difference when cards say core speed and memory speed?
I see cheaper cards on the market have the same core speed but are DDR2 instead of 3.

larsV12 says:

@Terrence .. core (clock) speed like any of the other measures of performance in gfx cards is all relative. You mention lesser cards having "the same core speed" .. and that's actually incorrect across each generation iteration of DDR & GDDR vRAM types. That's to say, a gfx card with 1GB of DDR2 vRAM will essentially perform no better than a card with 512MB's of GDDR3 vRAM. You see, the premise being that each generation of DDR roughly doubles the speed of the generation before. So, put another way, 1 GB of GDDR3 will perform at only half the speed of 1 GB of GDDR5. So, it's like this, DDR2 & DDR3?? Forget it .. they're yesterday's tech' - and a complete waste of time even thinking about (let alone discussing). If you're after a budget upgrade in the RED corner, i'd advise a HD6950 2GB - or better still a 6970, at the very least. If you're looking at the GREEN team, consider at least a GTX 480 or GTX 580. As all of those cards are getting relatively old now (but each still supporting DX 11 & all having GDDR5 vRAM), you should be able to pick up a bargain from either the GREEN or RED Team on any one of those cards i've named 😉

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