Radeon HD 6870M vs GeForce 7900 GTX
Contents
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 1178 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Power efficiency | 0.85 | no data |
| Architecture | Curie (2003−2013) | TeraScale 2 (2009−2015) |
| GPU code name | G71 | Granville |
| Market segment | Desktop | Laptop |
| Release date | 9 March 2006 (20 years ago) | 4 January 2011 (15 years ago) |
Detailed specifications
General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | no data | 800 |
| Core clock speed | 650 MHz | 675 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 278 million | 1,040 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 90 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 84 Watt | 50 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 15.60 | 27.00 |
| Floating-point processing power | no data | 1.08 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 16 | 16 |
| TMUs | 24 | 40 |
| L1 Cache | no data | 80 KB |
| L2 Cache | no data | 256 KB |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Laptop size | no data | large |
| Interface | PCIe 1.0 x16 | MXM-B (3.0) |
| Width | 1-slot | no data |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pin | no data |
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 | GDDR3 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 128 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 800 MHz | 1000 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 51.2 GB/s | 64 GB/s |
| Shared memory | - | - |
Connectivity and outputs
This section shows the types and number of video connectors on each GPU. The data applies specifically to desktop reference models (for example, NVIDIA’s Founders Edition). OEM partners often modify both the number and types of ports. On notebook GPUs, video‐output options are determined by the laptop’s design rather than the graphics chip itself.
| Display Connectors | 2x DVI, 1x S-Video | No outputs |
API and SDK support
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 9.0c (9_3) | 11.2 (11_0) |
| Shader Model | 3.0 | 5.0 |
| OpenGL | 2.1 | 4.4 |
| OpenCL | N/A | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | N/A | N/A |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 9 March 2006 | 4 January 2011 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Chip lithography | 90 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 84 Watt | 50 Watt |
HD 6870M has an age advantage of 4 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 125% more advanced lithography process, and 68% lower power consumption.
We couldn't decide between GeForce 7900 GTX and Radeon HD 6870M. We've got no test results to judge.
Be aware that GeForce 7900 GTX is a desktop graphics card while Radeon HD 6870M is a notebook one.
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