Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5870, which has GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5870, in theory, should perform a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5850 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is quite a bit (about 30%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5850. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15800 (30%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be a little bit (about 17%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 5850, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (17%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.