Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon RX 5500 XT

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 7870 and Radeon RX 5500 XT, 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 7870 stacks up against Radeon RX 5500 XT, check out specs charts below.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 7870 Radeon RX 5500 XT
Power consumption (TDP) 175 Watt 130 Watt
Interface PCIe 4.0 x8
Supplementary power connectors 1x 8-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR6
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 8 GB
Display Connectors 1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 7870 has 34% more power consumption, than Radeon RX 5500 XT.
  • Radeon RX 5500 XT has 6 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 7870.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 7870 is build with GCN architecture, and Radeon RX 5500 XT - with RDNA 1.0.
  • Radeon HD 7870 is manufactured by 28 nm process technology, and Radeon RX 5500 XT - by 7 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon RX 5500 XT is 9200 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7870.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 24−27 45−50
ultra / 1080p 14−16 30−35
QHD / 1440p 9−10 24−27
4K / 2160p 6−7 14−16
low / 720p 45−50 70−75
medium / 1080p 30−33 55−60
The average gaming FPS of Radeon RX 5500 XT in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 86% more, than Radeon HD 7870.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 7870 Radeon RX 5500 XT
Architecture GCN RDNA 1.0
Code name Pitcairn XT Navi 14
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 5 March 2012 12 December 2019
Pipelines 1280 1408
Core clock speed 1000 MHz
Boost Clock 1845 MHz
Transistor count 2800 Million 6,400 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 7 nm
Texture fill rate 162.4
Length 180 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 4800 MHz 14000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 224.0 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX DirectX 11.1, Shader 5.1 12 (12_1)
Shader Model 6.5
OpenGL 4.6
OpenCL 2.0
Vulkan 1.2.131
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.39 kh/s
Eyefinity +
Decred / DCR (Decred) 0.63 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 16.6 Mh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) 145 Sol/s
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