Home / ATI / ATI Radeon HD 5970: Performance and Specs

ATI Radeon HD 5970

ATI Radeon HD 5970: A Legend of the Past in the Era of Modern Technologies

April 2025

Introduction

The ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics card, released in 2009, became a symbol of technological breakthrough of its time. However, in 2025, it is perceived more as an artifact of that era than as a relevant solution. Let's examine what makes this model noteworthy today, who might still find it useful, and what lessons can be drawn from its architecture.

Architecture and Key Features

TeraScale 2: Double Power

The HD 5970 is built on the TeraScale 2 architecture (codename R800), combining two RV870 graphics processors on a single PCB. This makes it one of the first successful dual-chip graphics cards. The manufacturing process is 40 nm, which was an advanced solution for 2009.

Unique Features of the Era

- DirectX 11: Support for new tessellation effects and GPU computing.

- ATI Eyefinity: The ability to connect up to 6 monitors—a revolution for multi-display setups.

- CrossFireX: Performance scaling technology, but in the HD 5970, it is already implemented "out of the box" thanks to the two chips.

Important: Modern technologies like ray tracing (RTX), DLSS, or FidelityFX are absent here. This is strictly a “bitmap” card without hardware acceleration for AI or RT cores.

Memory: The Paradox of a Dual-Chip System

Technical Specifications

- Memory Type: GDDR5.

- Capacity: 2 GB (1 GB per GPU).

- Bus: 256-bit per chip, totaling 512-bit.

- Bandwidth: 128 GB/s per chip (256 GB/s theoretically, but due to memory sharing, the efficiency is lower).

Impact on Performance

Even in 2009, 1 GB per chip was the minimum for comfortable gaming at 2560x1600 resolution. By 2025, this is insufficient even for 1080p in modern projects: high-resolution textures simply do not fit in VRAM.

Gaming Performance: Nostalgia with Limitations

Modern Projects

The card is not compatible with games requiring DirectX 12 Ultimate or Vulkan RT. In less demanding titles, performance metrics are modest:

- CS2 (1080p, low settings): ~40-50 FPS (with dips due to lack of VRAM).

- Fortnite (1080p, Performance Mode): ~30-40 FPS.

- Indie games (Hollow Knight, Celeste): Stable 60+ FPS.

Resolutions

- 1080p: The only viable option for 2025, but even here, artifacts can occur.

- 1440p/4K: Impractical due to memory and computational power limitations.

Ray tracing: Not supported at the hardware level.

Professional Tasks: Not the Best Choice

Video Editing and 3D Modeling

- Lack of modern APIs (OpenCL 1.1 versus the current version 3.0) and poor rendering performance.

- No hardware acceleration for H.265 or AV1 encoding/decoding.

Scientific Calculations

Outdated architecture and drivers render the HD 5970 useless for machine learning or simulations. For these tasks, cards that support CUDA (NVIDIA) or modern AMD CDNA architectures are more suitable.

Power Consumption and Heat Generation

TDP and Real Loads

- TDP: 294 W—very high even by 2025 standards.

- Cooling Recommendations:

- A case with at least 3 fans and good airflow.

- Replace thermal paste and clean the heatsink when buying used.

- Ideally used in a PC with water cooling, but mounting adapters will need to be sourced separately.

Comparison with Competitors

In Its Time

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295: The main competitor of 2009. The HD 5970 excelled in multi-threaded tasks thanks to DirectX 11 optimizations.

In 2025

- NVIDIA GTX 1650 (4 GB GDDR6): Consumes 75 W, supports DLSS, and current APIs.

- AMD Radeon RX 6400 (4 GB GDDR6): Low power consumption (53 W), support for FSR 3.0.

These cards outperform the HD 5970 even at 1080p, despite their modest specifications.

Practical Tips

Power Supply

A minimum of 600 W with an 80+ Bronze certification. Examples: Corsair CX650M, be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 650W.

Compatibility

- Platform: Requires a motherboard with PCIe 2.0 x16 (compatible with PCIe 3.0/4.0, but with no performance boost).

- Drivers: The latest version is Catalyst 15.7.1 (2015). Conflicts may arise on Windows 10/11.

Pros and Cons

Pros

- Historical value for collectors.

- Support for Eyefinity for multi-monitor configurations.

- Ability to run retro games without emulation.

Cons

- High power consumption.

- Noisy cooling system.

- Lack of support for modern technologies.

Conclusion: Who Is This Card For?

The ATI Radeon HD 5970 in 2025 is a choice for:

1. Retro hardware enthusiasts looking to build PCs in the late 2000s style.

2. Collectors who appreciate technological relics.

3. Old game lovers where the original hardware adds authenticity.

For everyday tasks, modern gaming, or professional work, this card is not suitable. If you're looking for a budget solution under $150, consider newer AMD Radeon RX 6400 or NVIDIA GTX 1650— they are more efficient, quieter, and support current technologies.

Note: New HD 5970 units have not been sold since 2011. On the second-hand market, prices range from $50 to $100, but its value is more emotional than practical.

Basic

Label Name

ATI

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

November 2009

Model Name

Radeon HD 5970

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.

58.00 GTexel/s

FP64 (double)

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

464.0 GFLOPS

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.

2.366 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.

1600

L1 Cache

8 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

294W

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

600W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

2.366 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Max Q

2.507 +6%

Radeon HD 8860 OEM

2.415 +2.1%

Radeon HD 5970

2.366

GRID K200

2.335 -1.3%

GRID K560Q

2.243 -5.2%