ATI Radeon HD 5970 vs FirePro D500
Aggregate performance score
We've compared FirePro D500 with Radeon HD 5970, including specs and performance data.
D500 outperforms ATI HD 5970 by an impressive 82% based on our aggregate benchmark results.
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 436 | 602 |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | no data | 0.35 |
| Power efficiency | 2.69 | 1.38 |
| Architecture | GCN 1.0 (2011−2020) | TeraScale 2 (2009−2015) |
| GPU code name | Tahiti | Hemlock |
| Market segment | Workstation | Desktop |
| Release date | 18 January 2014 (11 years ago) | 18 November 2009 (15 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | no data | $699 |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
The higher the performance-to-price ratio, the better. We use the manufacturer's recommended prices for comparison.
Detailed specifications
General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 1536 | 1600 |
| Core clock speed | 725 MHz | 725 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 4,313 million | 2,154 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 274 Watt | 294 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 69.60 | 58.00 |
| Floating-point processing power | 2.227 TFLOPS | 2.32 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 |
| TMUs | 96 | 80 |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 2.0 x16 |
| Length | 279 mm | 305 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | no data | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 1 GB |
| Memory bus width | 384 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 1270 MHz | 1000 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 243.8 GB/s | 128.0 GB/s |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.
| Display Connectors | 6x mini-DisplayPort, 1x SDI | 2x DVI, 1x mini-DisplayPort |
API and SDK compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 12 (11_1) | 11.2 (11_0) |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.4 |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | 1.2.131 | N/A |
Gaming performance
Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.
Pros & cons summary
| Performance score | 10.37 | 5.70 |
| Recency | 18 January 2014 | 18 November 2009 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 1 GB |
| Chip lithography | 28 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 274 Watt | 294 Watt |
FirePro D500 has a 81.9% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 4 years, a 200% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 42.9% more advanced lithography process, and 7.3% lower power consumption.
The FirePro D500 is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon HD 5970 in performance tests.
Be aware that FirePro D500 is a workstation graphics card while Radeon HD 5970 is a desktop one.
Other comparisons
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
