Radeon HD 7950 Monica BIOS 2 vs ATI HD 5870 Mac Edition
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | not rated | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Architecture | TeraScale 2 (2009−2015) | GCN 1.0 (2011−2020) |
| GPU code name | Cypress | Tahiti |
| Market segment | Desktop | Desktop |
| Release date | 30 June 2010 (14 years ago) | 31 January 2012 (12 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $479 | no data |
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 | 1600 | 768 |
| Core clock speed | 850 MHz | 800 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 2,154 million | 4,313 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 40 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 228 Watt | 85 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 68.00 | 38.40 |
| Floating-point processing power | 2.72 TFLOPS | 1.229 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 |
| TMUs | 80 | 48 |
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 2.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Length | 279 mm | 267 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | 2x 6-pin | 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 | 1 GB | 3 GB |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 384 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 1195 MHz | 1250 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 153.0 GB/s | 240.0 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 | 1x DVI, 2x mini-DisplayPort | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort |
| HDMI | - | + |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 11.2 (11_0) | 12 (11_1) |
| Shader Model | 5.0 | 5.1 |
| OpenGL | 4.4 | 4.6 |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | N/A | 1.2.131 |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 30 June 2010 | 31 January 2012 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 1 GB | 3 GB |
| Chip lithography | 40 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 228 Watt | 85 Watt |
HD 7950 Monica BIOS 2 has an age advantage of 1 year, a 200% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 42.9% more advanced lithography process, and 168.2% lower power consumption.
We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition and Radeon HD 7950 Monica BIOS 2. 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.
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