Radeon HD 8950M vs ATI HD 5870

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking596not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.60no data
Power efficiency2.13no data
ArchitectureTeraScale 2 (2009−2015)GCN 2.0 (2013−2017)
GPU code nameCypressSaturn
Market segmentDesktopLaptop
Release date23 September 2009 (15 years ago)14 May 2013 (11 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$399 no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

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 cores1600768
Core clock speed850 MHz1075 MHz
Number of transistors2,154 million2,080 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)188 Watt100 Watt
Texture fill rate68.0051.60
Floating-point processing power2.72 TFLOPS1.651 TFLOPS
ROPs3216
TMUs8048

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).

InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16PCIe 3.0 x16
Length282 mmno data
Width2-slotno data
Supplementary power connectors2x 6-pinno 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 amount1 GB2 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1200 MHz1375 MHz
Memory bandwidth153.6 GB/s88 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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPortNo outputs
HDMI+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.2 (11_0)12 (12_0)
Shader Model5.06.3
OpenGL4.44.6
OpenCL1.22.0
VulkanN/A1.2.131

Pros & cons summary


Recency 23 September 2009 14 May 2013
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2 GB
Chip lithography 40 nm 28 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 188 Watt 100 Watt

HD 8950M has an age advantage of 3 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 42.9% more advanced lithography process, and 88% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 5870 and Radeon HD 8950M. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Radeon HD 5870 is a desktop card while Radeon HD 8950M is a notebook one.


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

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ATI Radeon HD 5870
Radeon HD 5870
AMD Radeon HD 8950M
Radeon HD 8950M

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Community ratings

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


3.9 227 votes

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4.1 19 votes

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Questions & comments

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