GeForce RTX 4090 Max-Q vs ATI Radeon HD 5970

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Primary details

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

Place in the ranking583not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.34no data
Power efficiency1.40no data
ArchitectureTeraScale 2 (2009−2015)Ada Lovelace (2022−2024)
GPU code nameHemlockAD103
Market segmentDesktopLaptop
Release date18 November 2009 (14 years ago)3 January 2023 (1 year ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$699 no data

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 cores16009728
Core clock speed725 MHz930 MHz
Boost clock speedno data1455 MHz
Number of transistors2,154 million45,900 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm4 nm
Power consumption (TDP)294 Watt80 Watt
Texture fill rate58.00442.3
Floating-point processing power2.32 TFLOPS28.31 TFLOPS
ROPs32112
TMUs80304
Tensor Coresno data304
Ray Tracing Coresno data76

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).

InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16
Length305 mmno data
Width2-slotno data
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pinNone

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 typeGDDR5GDDR6
Maximum RAM amount1 GB16 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed1000 MHz1750 MHz
Memory bandwidth128.0 GB/s448.0 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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x mini-DisplayPortPortable Device Dependent

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.2 (11_0)12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model5.06.7
OpenGL4.44.6
OpenCL1.23.0
VulkanN/A1.3
CUDA-8.9

Pros & cons summary


Recency 18 November 2009 3 January 2023
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 16 GB
Chip lithography 40 nm 4 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 294 Watt 80 Watt

RTX 4090 Max-Q has an age advantage of 13 years, a 1500% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 900% more advanced lithography process, and 267.5% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 5970 and GeForce RTX 4090 Max-Q. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Radeon HD 5970 is a desktop card while GeForce RTX 4090 Max-Q is a notebook one.


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

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ATI Radeon HD 5970
Radeon HD 5970
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Max-Q
GeForce RTX 4090 Max-Q

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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3.6 43 votes

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Questions & comments

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