Stream Processors vs Speeds

[Sir Shfvingle]

Looking at video cards, I've been able to understand all the various numbers that go along with them more. However, comparing two, I have come across something that has stumped me. I compared the AMD Radeon 5850 and 6870 as they are about the same price. What I found though is that the 5850 has 1440 stream processors and the 6870 has 1120 sp's while 6870 has higher clock speeds than the 5850. I know there is a lot that goes into all these specs but if I could get a simplified definition on how the two specs coincide and which card is better, it would be very appreciated. Thanks.

Cards: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600083901&IsNodeId=1&page=2&bop=And&CompareItemList=48|14-125-318^14-125-318-TS%2C14-150-507^14-150-507-TS

[mrcrusty]

Looking at video cards, I've been able to understand all the various numbers that go along with them more. However, comparing two, I have come across something that has stumped me. I compared the AMD Radeon 5850 and 6870 as they are about the same price. What I found though is that the 5850 has 1440 stream processors and the 6870 has 1120 sp's while 6870 has higher clock speeds than the 5850. I know there is a lot that goes into all these specs but if I could get a simplified definition on how the two specs coincide and which card is better, it would be very appreciated. Thanks.

Cards: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600083901&IsNodeId=1&page=2&bop=And&CompareItemList=48|14-125-318^14-125-318-TS%2C14-150-507^14-150-507-TS

If you feel like reading a lot and making your head hurt, these two Anandtech review pages are very informative.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...range-market/2

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2841/5

Simply put, Cypress is more powerful and Barts is more efficient.

At stock speeds, the Barts (6870) is faster though. I'll explain more later.

[Big Boss]

Number of Stream Processors, as well as speed, are only part of the equation. In this case, the equation=the GPU architecture. No one here is likely to give you an adequate response, not without a long page of text, so I would suggest go read some reviews the 6870. Look for ones that have a couple pages about the Barts core, they should highlight the differences between Cypress and Barts.

6870 is generally faster, btw.

Edit: Wow, spookie that we both responded at nearly identical times.