Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 850A
Contents
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 955 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Power efficiency | 3.13 | no data |
| Architecture | Maxwell (2014−2017) | GCN 1.0 (2012−2020) |
| GPU code name | GM107 | Tahiti |
| Market segment | Laptop | Desktop |
| Design | no data | reference |
| Release date | 17 March 2014 (11 years ago) | 22 June 2012 (13 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | no data | $499 |
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 | 640 | 2048 |
| Core clock speed | 902 MHz | no data |
| Boost clock speed | 936 MHz | 1050 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 1,870 million | 4,313 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 45 Watt | 250 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 37.44 | 134.4 |
| Floating-point processing power | 1.198 TFLOPS | 4.301 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 16 | 32 |
| TMUs | 40 | 128 |
| L1 Cache | 320 KB | 512 KB |
| L2 Cache | 2 MB | 768 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).
| Bus support | no data | PCIe 2.1 x16 |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Length | no data | 274 mm |
| Width | no data | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | no data | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin |
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 | DDR3 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 2 GB | 3 GB |
| Memory bus width | 128 Bit | 384 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 900 MHz | 1500 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 28.8 GB/s | 288 GB/s |
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 | No outputs | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort |
| Eyefinity | - | + |
| HDMI | - | + |
Supported technologies
Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.
| CrossFire | - | + |
| FreeSync | - | + |
API and SDK support
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 | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | 1.1.126 | - |
| CUDA | 5.0 | - |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 17 March 2014 | 22 June 2012 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 2 GB | 3 GB |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 45 Watt | 250 Watt |
GTX 850A has an age advantage of 1 year, and 455.6% lower power consumption.
HD 7970 GHz Edition, on the other hand, has a 50% higher maximum VRAM amount.
We couldn't decide between GeForce GTX 850A and Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. We've got no test results to judge.
Be aware that GeForce GTX 850A is a notebook graphics card while Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is a desktop one.
Other comparisons
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
