Radeon HD 6970M Mac Edition vs HD 7870
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 400 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | 2.90 | no data |
| Power efficiency | 4.75 | no data |
| Architecture | GCN 1.0 (2011−2020) | TeraScale 2 (2009−2015) |
| GPU code name | Pitcairn | Blackcomb |
| Market segment | Desktop | Laptop |
| Release date | 5 March 2012 (12 years ago) | 25 August 2011 (13 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $349 | no data |
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 | 1280 | 960 |
| Core clock speed | 1000 MHz | 680 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 2,800 million | 1,700 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 175 Watt | 75 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 80.00 | 32.64 |
| Floating-point processing power | 2.56 TFLOPS | 1.306 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 |
| TMUs | 80 | 48 |
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).
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | MXM-B (3.0) |
| Length | 241 mm | no data |
| Width | 2-slot | no data |
| Supplementary power connectors | 2x 6-pin | None |
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 | 2 GB | 2 GB |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 1200 MHz | 900 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 153.6 GB/s | 115.2 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 | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort | No outputs |
| Eyefinity | + | - |
| HDMI | + | - |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 12 (11_1) | 11.2 (11_0) |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.4 |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | 1.2.131 | N/A |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 5 March 2012 | 25 August 2011 |
| Chip lithography | 28 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 175 Watt | 75 Watt |
HD 7870 has an age advantage of 6 months, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.
HD 6970M Mac Edition, on the other hand, has 133.3% lower power consumption.
We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 7870 and Radeon HD 6970M Mac Edition. We've got no test results to judge.
Be aware that Radeon HD 7870 is a desktop card while Radeon HD 6970M Mac Edition is a notebook one.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
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