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ATI Radeon HD 5950

ATI Radeon HD 5950: A Hybrid of Power and Innovation for Gamers and Professionals

Review valid as of April 2025

Introduction

The ATI Radeon HD 5950 video card is AMD's flagship model designed for those who demand the best from gaming and professional tasks. Released in early 2025, it combines advanced architecture, improved energy efficiency, and support for modern technologies. In this review, we will discuss why the HD 5950 might be your choice, even in the face of tough competition from NVIDIA.

Architecture and Key Features

RDNA 4: A Step Forward

The HD 5950 is built on the RDNA 4 architecture, which is an evolution of the successful RDNA 3. Key improvements include:

- 5-nm TSMC Technology: The transistor density has increased by 30%, allowing for more compute units without increased power consumption.

- Accelerated Ray Tracing: Second-generation Ray Accelerators provide a 50% boost in RT computing speed compared to RDNA 3.

- FidelityFX Super Resolution 3.0: An AI-based upscaling algorithm for up to 4K resolution and support for Frame Generation.

Unique Features

- Hybrid Compute: Optimization for parallel tasks — gaming rendering and background data processing (like streaming or recording).

- Smart Access Storage: Faster texture loading via direct SSD access, bypassing the CPU (similar to Microsoft’s DirectStorage).

Memory: Speed and Volume

GDDR6X at 21 Gbps

- Capacity: 20 GB — sufficient for 4K textures in games and working with heavy 3D scenes.

- 320-bit Bus: Bandwidth of 840 GB/s (15% higher than the RTX 4080).

- Infinity Cache 128 MB: This third-level cache reduces memory access latency, which is critical for high FPS in CPU-dependent projects (like Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty).

Gaming Performance

Testing in Popular Titles

- Cyberpunk 2077 (Overdrive Mode):

- 4K, Ultra + RT Ultra: 48-55 FPS (with FSR 3.0 — up to 85 FPS).

- 1440p, Ultra + RT Ultra: 78-90 FPS.

- Alan Wake 2:

- 4K, High + RT: 60 FPS (FSR 3.0 Quality); without FSR — 42 FPS.

- Starfield (2025 Edition):

- 4K, Ultra: 65 FPS; 1440p — 110 FPS.

Ray Tracing: Reality vs Compromises

Despite the improvements, the ray tracing performance of the HD 5950 still lags behind NVIDIA’s flagships (for example, the RTX 5080 delivers +25% FPS in Portal: Revolution). However, with FSR 3.0, the gap is nearly bridged.

Professional Tasks

Video Editing and Rendering

- DaVinci Resolve: 40% acceleration in H.265 encoding thanks to the Media Engine.

- Blender: HIP-RT support allows rendering with RT 1.7 times faster than on RDNA 3.

Scientific Computing

- OpenCL and ROCm: The HD 5950 demonstrates 92% of the performance of the NVIDIA RTX 4090 in machine learning tasks (TensorFlow test).

- Downside: No equivalent of CUDA for specialized applications (like some Adobe plugins).

Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP 320 W: The Cost of Power

- Power Supply Recommendations: At least 750 W (preferably with 80+ Gold certification).

- Cooling:

- The reference Triple Fan cooler handles the load but can be noisy up to 42 dB under load.

- For builds in SFF cases, it’s better to choose a custom model with a heatsink and heat pipes (e.g., Sapphire Nitro+).

Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA RTX 5080 (16 GB)

- Pros of HD 5950:

- +20% memory capacity.

- Better price: $799 versus $1199 for the RTX 5080.

- Cons:

- DLSS 3.5 is more effective than FSR 3.0 at 4K.

- NVIDIA leads in rendering with RTX Studio.

AMD Radeon RX 8900 XT

The closest analog in AMD’s lineup:

- Similar performance, but the HD 5950 wins due to optimizations for professional tasks (+10% in SPECviewperf).

Practical Advice

PC Build

- Motherboard: Must support PCIe 5.0 x16 (ASUS ROG X670E).

- Processor: Ryzen 7 8800X or Intel Core i7-14700K to eliminate bottlenecks.

- Drivers: Adrenalin Edition 2025 is stable, but disable "Instant Replay" when working with professional software.

Optimization

- Set FSR 3.0 to "Balanced" mode for a good balance between quality and FPS.

- Use the AMD Fluid Motion utility for smooth gameplay without Frame Generation support.

Pros and Cons

Strengths

- Ideal for 4K gaming with FSR.

- Excellent price-to-memory ratio.

- Support for modern standards (DisplayPort 2.1, AV1).

Weaknesses

- High power consumption.

- Ray tracing requires compromises.

- Limited optimization for professional NVIDIA technologies.

Final Verdict

The ATI Radeon HD 5950 is suitable for:

- Gamers who want to play in 4K without overpaying for top-tier NVIDIA models.

- Editors and designers who need a versatile GPU for both work and entertainment.

- Enthusiasts valuing upgrade potential (PCIe 5.0 support and 20 GB of memory).

At a price of $799, it is one of the most balanced flagships of 2025, especially if you’re not willing to accept "green" pricing.

Prices are valid as of April 2025. Suggested retail price for new devices is indicated.

Basic

Label Name

ATI

Platform

Desktop

Model Name

Radeon HD 5950

Generation

Evergreen

Bus Interface

PCIe 2.0 x16

Transistors

2,154 million

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

40 nm

Architecture

TeraScale 2

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

1024MB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

256bit

Memory Clock

1000MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

128.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

23.20 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

52.20 GTexel/s

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

2.046 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

1440

L1 Cache

8 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

302W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

N/A

OpenCL Version

1.2

OpenGL

4.4

DirectX

11.2 (11_0)

Power Connectors

1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin

Shader Model

5.0

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

700W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

2.046 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

2.181 +6.6%

Quadro K5000 Mac Edition

2.126 +3.9%

Radeon HD 5950

2.046

FirePro W6170M

2.01 -1.8%

Radeon R7 370

1.957 -4.3%