Radeon HD 6870M vs HD 6990M

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking617not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency3.60no data
ArchitectureTeraScale 2 (2009−2015)TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code nameBlackcombGranville
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date12 July 2011 (13 years ago)4 January 2011 (13 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 cores1120800
Core clock speed715 MHz675 MHz
Number of transistors1,700 million1,040 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)100 Watt50 Watt
Texture fill rate40.0427.00
Floating-point processing power1.602 TFLOPS1.08 TFLOPS
ROPs3216
TMUs5640

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 sizelargelarge
InterfaceMXM-B (3.0)MXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectorsNoneno 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 typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount2 GB1 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed900 MHz1000 MHz
Memory bandwidth115.2 GB/s64 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 ConnectorsNo outputsNo outputs

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.2 (11_0)11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model5.05.0
OpenGL4.44.4
OpenCL1.21.2
VulkanN/AN/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 12 July 2011 4 January 2011
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 1 GB
Power consumption (TDP) 100 Watt 50 Watt

HD 6990M has an age advantage of 6 months, and a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount.

HD 6870M, on the other hand, has 100% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 6990M and Radeon HD 6870M. 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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AMD Radeon HD 6990M
Radeon HD 6990M
AMD Radeon HD 6870M
Radeon HD 6870M

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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3.6 14 votes

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4 4 votes

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Questions & comments

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