Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 590

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking	495	not rated
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	0.78	no data
Power efficiency	1.65	no data
Architecture	Fermi 2.0 (2010−2014)	GCN 1.0 (2011−2020)
GPU code name	GF110	Tahiti
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Design	no data	reference
Release date	24 March 2011 (13 years ago)	22 June 2012 (12 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$699	$499

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

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	1024	2048
Core clock speed	607 MHz	no data
Boost clock speed	no data	1050 MHz
Number of transistors	3,000 million	4,313 million
Manufacturing process technology	40 nm	28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	365 Watt	250 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature	97 °C	no data
Texture fill rate	38.91	134.4
Floating-point processing power	1.244 TFLOPS	4.301 TFLOPS
ROPs	48	32
TMUs	64	128

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 support	16x PCI-E 2.0	PCIe 2.1 x16
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	279 mm	274 mm
Height	4.376" (111 mm) (11.1 cm)	no data
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	2x 8-pin	1x 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 type	GDDR5	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	3072 MB (1536 MB per GPU)	3 GB
Memory bus width	768-bit (384-bit per GPU)	384 Bit
Memory clock speed	1707 MHz	1500 MHz
Memory bandwidth	327.7 GB/s	288 GB/s
Shared memory	-	-

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	Three Dual Link DVI-IMini DisplayPort	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
Multi monitor support	+	no data
Eyefinity	-	+
HDMI	+	+
Maximum VGA resolution	2048x1536	no data
Audio input for HDMI	Internal	no data

Supported technologies

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

CrossFire	-	+
FreeSync	-	+

API compatibility

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

DirectX	12 (11_0)	DirectX® 11
Shader Model	5.1	5.1
OpenGL	4.2	4.6
OpenCL	1.1	1.2
Vulkan	N/A	-
CUDA	+	-

Pros & cons summary

---

Recency	24 March 2011	22 June 2012
Chip lithography	40 nm	28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	365 Watt	250 Watt

---

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

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.

---