Radeon HD 5870 vs Radeon RX 550X

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 5870 and Radeon RX 550X, there are a couple of things to consider. Cards with more VRAM in general perform better and allow you to play on higher graphics settings. Size also makes a difference. A model with a large heatsink can occupy up to three expansion slots on a motherboard. Be sure you have enough room in your PC case. When comparing GPUs with different architectures, more processing cores and even higher TFLOPS will not always translate to better performance. To help you decide which GPU you need, we have measured frame rates in a number of popular games. For more on how the Radeon HD 5870 stacks up against Radeon RX 550X, check out specs charts below.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 5870 Radeon RX 550X
Power consumption (TDP) 188 Watt 50 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x8
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin None
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 5870 has 276% more power consumption, than Radeon RX 550X.
  • Radeon HD 5870 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon RX 550X uses PCIe 3.0 x8 interface.
  • Radeon RX 550X has 3 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 5870.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 5870 is build with TeraScale 2 architecture, and Radeon RX 550X - with GCN 4.0.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon RX 550X is 250 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 5870.
  • Radeon HD 5870 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon RX 550X - by 14 nm process technology.
  • Radeon HD 5870 is 137 mm longer, than Radeon RX 550X.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon RX 550X is 1200 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 5870.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 10−12 10−11
ultra / 1080p 6−7 6−7
QHD / 1440p 1−2 0−1
low / 720p 24−27 21−24
medium / 1080p 14−16 12−14
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 5870 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 7% more, than Radeon RX 550X.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 5870 Radeon RX 550X
Architecture TeraScale 2 GCN 4.0
Code name Cypress Lexa
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 23 September 2009 16 December 2018
Pipelines 1600 512
Core clock speed 850 MHz 1100 MHz
Boost Clock 1183 MHz
Transistor count 2,154 million 2,200 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 14 nm
Texture fill rate 68.00 37.86
Floating-point performance 2,720.0 gflops 1,211 gflops
Length 282 mm 145 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 4800 MHz 6000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 153.6 GB/s 96 GB/s
DirectX 11.2 (11_0) 12 (12_0)
Shader Model 5.0 6.4
OpenGL 4.4 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 2.0
Vulkan N/A 1.2.131
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