Radeon HD 6970M Mac Edition vs FirePro W7170M

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in performance ranking	476	not rated
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	1.20	no data
Architecture	GCN 3 (2014−2016)	TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code name	Tonga	Blackcomb
Market segment	Mobile workstation	Desktop
Release date	2 October 2015 (8 years ago)	25 August 2011 (12 years ago)
Current price	$600	$180

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Detailed specifications

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	2048	960
Core clock speed	723 MHz	680 MHz
Number of transistors	5,000 million	1,700 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	100 Watt	75 Watt
Texture fill rate	92.54	32.64
Floating-point performance	2,961 gflops	1,305.6 gflops

Form factor & compatibility

Information on FirePro W7170M and Radeon HD 6970M Mac Edition compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility). For notebook video cards it's notebook size, connection slot and bus, if the video card is inserted into a slot instead of being soldered to the notebook motherboard.

Laptop size	large	no data
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	MXM-B (3.0)
Width	no data	MXM Module
Supplementary power connectors	None	None

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR5	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	4 GB	2 GB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	256 Bit
Memory clock speed	5000 MHz	3600 MHz
Memory bandwidth	160.0 GB/s	115.2 GB/s
Shared memory	-	no data

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	No outputs	No outputs
Eyefinity	+	no data

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

AppAcceleration

+

no data

API compatibility

List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	12 (12_0)	11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model	6.3	5.0
OpenGL	4.6	4.4
OpenCL	2.0	1.2
Vulkan	1.2.131	N/A

Pros & cons summary

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Recency	2 October 2015	25 August 2011
Maximum RAM amount	4 GB	2 GB
Chip lithography	28 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	100 Watt	75 Watt

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