Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 7970

When choosing between Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 7970, it is worth examining the specifications of the models in detail. Do they meet the recommended requirements of modern games and software? Storage capacity, form factor, TDP, available ports, warranty and manufacturer support are all important. For example, the size of a PC case can limit the maximum thickness and length of the card. Often, instead of the factory overclocked card and RGB backlight, it is better to choose a reference model with a more efficient GPU. And make sure that your current power supply unit has the correct connection pins (using adapters is not recommended). This GPUs compare tool is meant to help you to choose the best graphics card for your build. Let's find out the difference between Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 7970.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 5850 Radeon HD 7970
Power consumption (TDP) 151 Watt 300 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 3 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 7970 has 98% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 5850.
  • Radeon HD 5850 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 7970 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 7970 has 2 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 5850.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 5850 is build with Terascale 2 architecture, and Radeon HD 7970 - with GCN.
  • Radeon HD 5850 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 7970 - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Radeon HD 7970 is 33 mm longer, than Radeon HD 5850.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 5850 is 625 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7970.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 9−10 35−40
ultra / 1080p 5−6 21−24
QHD / 1440p 0−1 16−18
4K / 2160p 10−11
low / 720p 21−24 60−65
medium / 1080p 12−14 40−45
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7970 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 241% more, than Radeon HD 5850.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 5850 Radeon HD 7970
Architecture Terascale 2 GCN
Code name Cypress Tahiti XT
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 30 September 2009 22 December 2011
Pipelines 1440 2048
Core clock speed 725 MHz
Boost Clock 925 MHz
Transistor count 2,154 million 4,313 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 52.20 118.4
Floating-point performance 2,088.0 gflops 3,789 gflops
Length 241 mm 274 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 384 Bit
Memory clock speed 2000 MHz 1375 MHz
Memory bandwidth 128.0 GB/s 264 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model 5.0 5.1
OpenGL 4.4 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan N/A
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 2.1 x16
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 485 Mh/s
Eyefinity +
Design reference
CrossFire +
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 20.71 Mh/s
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