Graphics card comparison
Radeon HD 7870 XT vs Radeon R9 285
AMD
Radeon HD 7870 XT
2048 Mb GDDR5
Released 19 Nov 2012
DESKTOP
VS
AMD
Radeon R9 285
2048 Mb GDDR5
Released 2 Sep 2014
DESKTOP
Summary
Synthetic performance index
- Radeon HD 7870 XT100%
- Radeon R9 285125%
Relative performance
Gaming performance index
- Radeon HD 7870 XT100%
- Radeon R9 285119%
Relative performance
Reasons to consider the Radeon HD 7870 XT
- Supports Direct3D 12 Async Compute
- Supports ReLive (allows game streaming/recording with minimum performance penalty)
- Supports Mantle
- Based on an outdated architecture (AMD GCN), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications
Reasons to consider the Radeon R9 285
- 19% higher gaming performance.
- This is a much newer product, it might have better long term support.
- Supports Direct3D 12 Async Compute
- Supports FreeSync
- Supports ReLive (allows game streaming/recording with minimum performance penalty)
- Supports TrueAudio
- Based on an outdated architecture (AMD GCN), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications
Our verdict
HWSpot recommends the Radeon R9 285
The Radeon R9 285 is the better performing card based on the game benchmark suite used (1 combinations of games and resolutions).
Specifications
Core configuration
| Radeon HD 7870 XT | Radeon R9 285 |
|---|
| GPU Name | Tahiti (Tahiti LE) | Tonga (Tonga PRO) |
| Fab Process | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Die Size | 352 mm² | 366 mm² |
| Transistors | 4,313 million | 5,000 million |
| Shaders | 1536 | 1792 |
| Compute Units | 24 | 28 |
| Core clock | 925 MHz | 918 MHz |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 |
| TMUs | 96 | 112 |
Memory configuration
| Radeon HD 7870 XT | Radeon R9 285 |
|---|
| Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Bus Width | 256 bit | 256 bit |
| Memory Speed | 1500 MHz
6000 MHz effective | 1375 MHz
5500 MHz effective |
| Memory Size | 2048 Mb | 2048 Mb |
Additional details
| Radeon HD 7870 XT | Radeon R9 285 |
|---|
| TDP | 185 watts | 190 watts |
| Release Date | 19 Nov 2012 | 2 Sep 2014 |
Raw performance comparison
Pixel Rate
- Radeon HD 7870 XT29.60 GP/s
- Radeon R9 28529.38 GP/s
GigaPixels - higher is better
Texel Rate
- Radeon HD 7870 XT88.80 GT/s
- Radeon R9 285102.80 GT/s
GigaTexels - higher is better
Memory bandwidth
- Radeon HD 7870 XT192.00 GB/s
- Radeon R9 285176.00 GB/s
GB/s - higher is better
Single precision performance
- Radeon HD 7870 XT2842.00 GFLOPs
- Radeon R9 2853290.00 GFLOPs
GFLOPs - higher is better
Synthetic benchmarks
3DMark 11
- Radeon HD 7870 XT8590
- Radeon R9 28510790
Points (higher is better)
Game benchmarks
Hitman Absolution
DX11, High Quality, 2x MSAA, 16x AF
- Radeon HD 7870 XT36
- Radeon R9 28543
FPS (higher is better)