Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 560

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Primary details

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

Place in the ranking546not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation1.86no data
Power efficiency3.27no data
ArchitectureFermi 2.0 (2010−2014)GCN 1.0 (2011−2020)
GPU code nameGF114Tahiti
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Designno datareference
Release date17 May 2011 (13 years ago)22 June 2012 (12 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$199 $499

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

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 cores3362048
Core clock speed810 MHzno data
Boost clock speedno data1050 MHz
Number of transistors1,950 million4,313 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)150 Watt250 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature99 °Cno data
Texture fill rate45.36134.4
Floating-point processing power1.089 TFLOPS4.301 TFLOPS
ROPs3232
TMUs56128

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).

Bus support16x PCI-E 2.0PCIe 2.1 x16
InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16PCIe 3.0 x16
Length210 mm274 mm
Height4.376" (11.1 cm)no data
Width2-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectors2x 6-pin1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
SLI options+-

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 typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount1 GB3 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit384 Bit
Memory clock speed1000 MHz1500 MHz
Memory bandwidth128.0 GB/s288 GB/s

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 ConnectorsTwo Dual Link DVI, Mini HDMI1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
Multi monitor support+no data
Eyefinity-+
HDMI++
HDCP+-
Maximum VGA resolution2048x1536no data
Audio input for HDMIInternalno data

Supported technologies

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

CrossFire-+
FreeSync-+
3D Blu-Ray+-
3D Gaming+-

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX12 (11_0)DirectX® 11
Shader Model5.15.1
OpenGL4.14.6
OpenCL1.11.2
VulkanN/A-
CUDA+-

Pros & cons summary


Recency 17 May 2011 22 June 2012
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 3 GB
Chip lithography 40 nm 28 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 150 Watt 250 Watt

GTX 560 has 66.7% lower power consumption.

HD 7970 GHz Edition, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 1 year, a 200% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between GeForce GTX 560 and Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. We've got no test results to judge.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
GeForce GTX 560
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


3.6 1079 votes

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4 49 votes

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Questions & comments

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