Radeon HD 6870M vs 520

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking882not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency2.80no data
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2011−2020)TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code nameBanksGranville
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date18 April 2017 (7 years ago)4 January 2011 (13 years ago)

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 cores320800
Core clock speed1030 MHz675 MHz
Number of transistors690 million1,040 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)50 Watt50 Watt
Texture fill rate20.6027.00
Floating-point processing power0.6592 TFLOPS1.08 TFLOPS
ROPs816
TMUs2040

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).

Laptop sizeno datalarge
InterfacePCIe 3.0 x8MXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectorsNoneno data

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 typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount2 GB1 GB
Memory bus width64 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1125 MHz1000 MHz
Memory bandwidth36 GB/s64 GB/s
Shared memory--

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 ConnectorsNo outputsNo outputs

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX12 (11_1)11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model5.15.0
OpenGL4.64.4
OpenCL1.21.2
Vulkan1.2.131N/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 18 April 2017 4 January 2011
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 1 GB
Chip lithography 28 nm 40 nm

Radeon 520 has an age advantage of 6 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between Radeon 520 and Radeon HD 6870M. We've got no test results to judge.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


AMD Radeon 520
Radeon 520
AMD Radeon HD 6870M
Radeon HD 6870M

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


3 336 votes

Rate Radeon 520 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
4 4 votes

Rate Radeon HD 6870M on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.