Quadro 5000 SDI vs ATI Radeon HD 5970

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Primary details

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

Place in the ranking587not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.36no data
Power efficiency1.40no data
ArchitectureTeraScale 2 (2009−2015)Fermi (2010−2014)
GPU code nameHemlockGF100
Market segmentDesktopWorkstation
Release date18 November 2009 (15 years ago)23 February 2011 (13 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$699 $7,899

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 cores1600352
Core clock speed725 MHz513 MHz
Number of transistors2,154 million3,100 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)294 Watt172 Watt
Texture fill rate58.0022.57
Floating-point processing power2.32 TFLOPS0.7223 TFLOPS
ROPs3240
TMUs8044

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 2.0 x16
Length305 mm248 mm
Width2-slotQuad-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin + 1x 8-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 GB2.5 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit320 Bit
Memory clock speed1000 MHz750 MHz
Memory bandwidth128.0 GB/s120.0 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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x mini-DisplayPort1x DVI, 2x DisplayPort, 1x S-Video, 2x SDI

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.2 (11_0)12 (11_0)
Shader Model5.05.1
OpenGL4.44.6
OpenCL1.21.1
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA-2.0

Pros & cons summary


Recency 18 November 2009 23 February 2011
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2.5 GB
Power consumption (TDP) 294 Watt 172 Watt

5000 SDI has an age advantage of 1 year, a 150% higher maximum VRAM amount, and 70.9% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 5970 and Quadro 5000 SDI. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Radeon HD 5970 is a desktop card while Quadro 5000 SDI is a workstation 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 5970
Radeon HD 5970
NVIDIA Quadro 5000 SDI
Quadro 5000 SDI

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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3.6 43 votes

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Questions & comments

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