ATI Radeon HD 5870

The ATI Radeon HD 5870, built on AMD’s TeraScale 2 architecture and the Cypress chip, arrived in September 2009 as the flagship of the Evergreen generation. Fabricated on TSMC’s 40 nm process, the card packs 2,154 million transistors into a 334 mm² die, with a transistor density of 6.4M per mm². Its 1600 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output pipelines deliver 2.720 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, 68.00 GTexel/s of texture fill, and 27.20 GPixel/s of pixel rate. The card carries 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit bus, yielding 153.6 GB/s of bandwidth. With a 188 W TDP, dual-slot cooler, and dual 6-pin power connectors, it demanded a 450 W power supply. Its display outputs include dual DVI, HDMI 1.3a, and DisplayPort 1.1, and it supports PCIe 2.0 x16. The HD 5870 is now end-of-life, succeeded by the Northern Islands generation, and launched with an MSRP of 399 USD. In the current benchmark database, it posts a Geekbench OpenCL score of 1848, placing it in the 10th percentile of all GPUs.

Benchmark Performance

The HD 5870’s Geekbench OpenCL score of 1848 is a modest figure by modern standards, and the percentile rank of 10 indicates that it outperforms only a tenth of all GPUs in the database. Its nearest rivals paint a picture of near-parity with low-end and entry-level parts. The card sits just 0.1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M (1846) and the NVIDIA Quadro K420 (1846), a margin that is effectively a statistical tie. Against the NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M (1869), the HD 5870 trails by 1.1%, and it falls 2.4% behind the AMD Radeon HD 6670 (1894). These deltas are small, suggesting that in OpenCL compute workloads, the HD 5870 performs within a narrow band of its closest competitors. The data shows that despite its age and high-end positioning at launch, its raw compute throughput has aged into the entry-level segment. The 2.720 TFLOPS FP32 figure, while impressive for 2009, now aligns with the performance of integrated and low-power discrete GPUs from later generations. The 10th percentile ranking underscores this shift: the card’s once-flagship status has eroded to the bottom decile of the current database.

Memory Subsystem

The HD 5870 pairs 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory with a 256-bit memory bus, producing a bandwidth of 153.6 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 1200 MHz, translating to 4.8 Gbps effective. For its era, this configuration was substantial: a 256-bit bus was common among high-end cards, and GDDR5 offered a significant bandwidth advantage over DDR3 or GDDR3. In practice, 153.6 GB/s is sufficient for 1080p gaming and moderate 1440p workloads, but the 1 GB capacity is a limiting factor at high resolutions and with modern textures. At 4K, the combination of a 1 GB frame buffer and 153.6 GB/s bandwidth would likely cause stuttering and texture thrashing, as the GPU would need to frequently swap data from system memory. The 27.20 GPixel/s pixel rate and 68.00 GTexel/s texture rate further indicate that the card’s fill capabilities are balanced with its memory throughput—neither is a clear bottleneck for the other. However, the memory subsystem’s 256-bit width and GDDR5 type were state-of-the-art in 2009, and the bandwidth figure remains respectable for the card’s compute class. For users targeting high resolutions, the capacity, not the bandwidth, would be the primary constraint.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The HD 5870 has no dedicated ray tracing cores and no tensor cores, as those technologies did not exist in the TeraScale 2 architecture. Its feature set is defined by its API support: it is compatible with DirectX 11.2 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.4, but it lacks Vulkan support. DirectX 11 brought tessellation and compute shaders, which the HD 5870 can handle through its 1600 shading units, but hardware-accelerated ray tracing is entirely absent. The absence of tensor cores also means no AI-accelerated features such as DLSS. In terms of rendering, the card relies on traditional rasterization. Its 32 ROPs and 80 TMUs provide solid performance for DX11-era games, but modern titles that leverage ray tracing or advanced compute effects will not benefit from any dedicated hardware. The lack of Vulkan support is notable, as many contemporary games and emulators use Vulkan for lower overhead; the HD 5870 is limited to DirectX and OpenGL paths. For a card from 2009, the feature set was forward-looking—DirectX 11 support was a major selling point—but it has not aged into the era of hybrid rendering. The 11.2 (11_0) designation indicates that the card meets the DirectX 11 feature level, but not the later 11_1 or 12 features.

FAQ

Q: What is the memory bandwidth of the ATI Radeon HD 5870?

A: The card has 153.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth, achieved with 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus running at 1200 MHz (4.8 Gbps effective).

Q: Does the HD 5870 support ray tracing?

A: No. The card has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. Its feature set is limited to DirectX 11.2 (11_0) and OpenGL 4.4, with no Vulkan support.

Q: How does the HD 5870 compare to the NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M in OpenCL performance?

A: The HD 5870 scores 1848, which is 0.1% higher than the GT 525M’s 1846—a negligible difference.

Q: What is the pixel fill rate of the HD 5870?

A: The card achieves 27.20 GPixel/s, derived from its 32 ROPs and the core clock.

Q: What is the transistor count and die size of the HD 5870?

A: It contains 2,154 million transistors on a 334 mm² die, fabricated on a 40 nm process by TSMC, giving a transistor density of 6.4M per mm².

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the HD 5870?

A: The launch MSRP was 399 USD.

How It Compares

NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M: The HD 5870 edges out the GT 525M by a 0.1% margin in OpenCL score (1848 vs. 1846). The GT 525M is a mobile GPU, and the near-tie indicates that the desktop HD 5870’s compute performance has fallen to the level of an entry-level laptop part. In practice, the HD 5870’s higher TDP and larger die yield no tangible advantage in this workload.

NVIDIA Quadro K420: The Quadro K420, a professional workstation card, also scores 1846, placing it 0.1% behind the HD 5870. This parity suggests that the HD 5870’s compute capabilities are on par with a low-end professional GPU, though the Quadro’s driver optimizations for professional applications are not reflected in the OpenCL score.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M: The GT 425M posts a score of 1869, which is 1.1% higher than the HD 5870. This is a slight but consistent advantage for the mobile part. The HD 5870’s older architecture and higher power draw do not translate into superior compute performance in this benchmark.

AMD Radeon HD 6670: The Radeon HD 6670, a later entry-level desktop card, scores 1894, outperforming the HD 5870 by 2.4%. This is the largest delta among the rivals, showing that even within AMD’s own lineup, the HD 5870 has been surpassed by a much smaller and less power-hungry successor. The data clearly indicates that the HD 5870’s performance ceiling is now below that of a mainstream card from just a few years later.