Radeon HD 7970: specs and benchmarks

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Aggregate performance score

Radeon HD 7970 provides acceptable gaming and benchmark performance at 11.87% of a leader's which is RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell.

Summary

AMD started Radeon HD 7970 sales 9 January 2012 at a recommended price of $549. This is a desktop graphics card based on a GCN 1.0 architecture and made with 28 nm manufacturing process. It is primarily aimed at gamer market. 6 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1.38 GHz are supplied, and together with 384 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 264 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is a dual-slot graphics card attached via PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 275 mm. One 6-pin and one 8-pin connectors are required, and power consumption is at 300 Watt.

Primary details

Some basic facts about Radeon HD 7970: architecture, market segment, release date etc.

Place in the ranking425
Place by popularitynot in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation2.04
Power efficiency3.82of 100.00 (Radeon 890M)
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2012−2020)
GPU code nameTahiti
Market segmentDesktop
Designreference
Release date9 January 2012 (13 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$549 of 14,999 (Quadro Plex 7000)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

The higher the ratio, the better. We use the manufacturer's recommended prices.

Performance to price scatter graph

Detailed specifications

Radeon HD 7970's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of Radeon HD 7970's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Pipelines / CUDA cores2048of 960 (GeForce GTX 660)
Boost clock speed925 MHzof 1000 (HD Graphics (Haswell))
Number of transistors4,313 millionof 100,000 million (Data Center GPU Max 1100)
Manufacturing process technology28 nmof 0.003 MB (Arc Graphics 140V)
Power consumption (TDP)300 Wattof 235 (FirePro S9150)
Texture fill rate118.4of 1,968 (RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell)
Floating-point processing power3.789 TFLOPSof 126 (RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell)
ROPs32of 512 (Moore Threads MTT S4000)
TMUs128of 896 (Data Center GPU Max 1350)
L1 Cache512 KBof 64 MB (Data Center GPU Max 1550)
L2 Cache768 KBof 408 MB (Data Center GPU Max 1350)

Form factor & compatibility

This section provides details about the physical dimensions of Radeon HD 7970 and its compatibility with other computer components. This information is useful when selecting a computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards, it includes details about the interface and bus (for motherboard compatibility) and additional power connectors (for power supply compatibility).

Bus supportPCIe 2.1 x16
InterfacePCIe 3.0 x16
Length275 mm
Width2-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of memory installed on Radeon HD 7970: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.

Memory typeGDDR5
Maximum RAM amount6 GBof 288 GB (Radeon Instinct MI325X)
Memory bus width384 Bit
Memory clock speed1375 MHzof 16384000 MB (GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile)
Memory bandwidth264 GB/sof 983040 MB (GeForce RTX 5080)
Shared memory-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on Radeon HD 7970. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.

Display Connectors1x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, 2x mini-DisplayPort 1.2
Eyefinity+
HDMI+

Supported technologies

Technological solutions and APIs supported by Radeon HD 7970. You'll probably need this information if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

CrossFire+
FreeSync+

API and SDK support

APIs supported by Radeon HD 7970, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectXDirectX® 11
Shader Model6.5 (5.1)
OpenGL4.6
OpenCL2.1 (1.2)

Benchmark performance

Synthetic benchmark performance of Radeon HD 7970. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score.

HD 7970
11.87

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

HD 7970 5248
Samples: 10419

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

HD 7970 7770

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

HD 7970 24757

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

HD 7970 6862

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

HD 7970 43795

Unigine Heaven 3.0

This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark using Unigine, a 3D game engine by eponymous Russian company. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. Version 3.0 was released in 2012, and in 2013 it was superseded by Heaven 4.0, which introduced several slight improvements, including a newer version of Unigine.

HD 7970 78

Unigine Heaven 4.0

This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark, a newer version of Unigine 3.0 with relatively small differences. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. The benchmark is still sometimes used, despite its significant age, as it was released back in 2013.

HD 7970 985

Gaming performance

Let's see how good Radeon HD 7970 is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:

900p105
Full HD93

Cost per frame, $

1080p5.90

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low

Counter-Strike 2 70−75
Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
Hogwarts Legacy 21−24

Full HD
Medium

Battlefield 5 55−60
Counter-Strike 2 70−75
Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
Far Cry 5 40−45
Fortnite 70−75
Forza Horizon 4 50−55
Forza Horizon 5 35−40
Hogwarts Legacy 21−24
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 45−50
Valorant 110−120

Full HD
High

Battlefield 5 55−60
Counter-Strike 2 70−75
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 212
Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
Dota 2 85−90
Far Cry 5 40−45
Fortnite 70−75
Forza Horizon 4 50−55
Forza Horizon 5 35−40
Grand Theft Auto V 45−50
Hogwarts Legacy 21−24
Metro Exodus 24−27
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 45−50
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 30−35
Valorant 110−120

Full HD
Ultra

Battlefield 5 55−60
Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
Dota 2 85−90
Far Cry 5 40−45
Forza Horizon 4 50−55
Hogwarts Legacy 21−24
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 45−50
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 30−35
Valorant 110−120

Full HD
Epic

Fortnite 70−75

1440p
High

Counter-Strike 2 24−27
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 95−100
Grand Theft Auto V 20−22
Metro Exodus 14−16
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 110−120
Valorant 130−140

1440p
Ultra

Battlefield 5 35−40
Cyberpunk 2077 10−12
Far Cry 5 27−30
Forza Horizon 4 30−35
Hogwarts Legacy 14−16
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 18−20

1440p
Epic

Fortnite 27−30

4K
High

Counter-Strike 2 8−9
Grand Theft Auto V 24−27
Hogwarts Legacy 7−8
Metro Exodus 9−10
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 16−18
Valorant 65−70

4K
Ultra

Battlefield 5 18−20
Counter-Strike 2 8−9
Cyberpunk 2077 4−5
Dota 2 45−50
Far Cry 5 12−14
Forza Horizon 4 21−24
Hogwarts Legacy 7−8
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 12−14

4K
Epic

Fortnite 12−14

Closest competitors

Radeon HD 7970's performance relative to its closest rivals among desktop graphics cards.


Arc A310 103.62
Radeon HD 7970 100

NVIDIA equivalent

According to our data, the closest NVIDIA alternative to Radeon HD 7970 is GeForce GTX 950, which is faster by 2% and higher by 6 positions in our ranking.

Here are some closest NVIDIA rivals to Radeon HD 7970:

Similar GPUs

Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

Recommended processors

These processors are most commonly used with Radeon HD 7970 according to our statistics.

All comparisons with Radeon HD 7970

Community ratings

Here you can see the user rating of the graphics card, as well as rate it yourself.


3.9 333 votes

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