AMD started Radeon HD 7970 sales 22 December 2011 at a recommended price of $549 . This is a desktop graphics card based on a GCN 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 dual-slot card attached via PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 274 mm. One 6-pin and one 8-pin connectors are required, and power consumption is at 300 Watt.

It provides poor gaming and benchmark performance at 13.55% of a leader's which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.

GeForce RTX4090

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General info

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

Place in performance ranking	352
Place by popularity	not in top-100
Value for money	4.00
Architecture	GCN (2011−2017)
GPU code name	Tahiti XT
Market segment	Desktop
Design	reference
Release date	22 December 2011 (12 years old)
Launch price (MSRP)	$549
Current price	$89 (0.2x MSRP)	of 168889 (A100 PCIe 80 GB)

Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Technical specs

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 cores	2048	of 20480 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT)
Boost clock speed	925 MHz	of 3599 (Radeon RX 7990 XTX)
Number of transistors	4,313 million	of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile)
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	of 4 (H100 PCIe)
Power consumption (TDP)	300 Watt	of 2400 (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)
Texture fill rate	118.4	of 969.9 (H100 SXM5 96 GB)
Floating-point performance	3,789 gflops	of 16384 (Radeon Pro Duo)

Size and 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 support	PCIe 2.1 x16
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	274 mm
Width	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin

Memory

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 type	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	6 GB	of 192 (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Memory bus width	384 Bit	of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory clock speed	1375 MHz	of 23000 (GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER)
Memory bandwidth	264 GB/s	of 3276 (Aldebaran)
Shared memory	-

Video outputs and ports

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 Connectors	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
Eyefinity	+
HDMI	+
DisplayPort support	-

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.

AppAcceleration	-
CrossFire	1
Enduro	-
FreeSync	1
HD3D	-
PowerTune	-
TrueAudio	-
ZeroCore	-

API support

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

DirectX	DirectX® 11
Shader Model	5.1
OpenGL	4.6
OpenCL	1.2
Mantle	-

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 performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

HD 7970 13.55

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. 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.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

HD 7970 5248

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.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

HD 7970 24757

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.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

HD 7970 7770

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.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

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.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

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.

Benchmark coverage: 4%

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.

Benchmark coverage: 1%

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:

900p	105
Full HD	93

Performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

21−24

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	27−30
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	21−24
Battlefield 5	45−50
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	35−40
Cyberpunk 2077	21−24
Far Cry 5	35−40
Far Cry New Dawn	35−40
Forza Horizon 4	45−50
Hitman 3	35−40
Horizon Zero Dawn	27−30
Red Dead Redemption 2	21−24
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	27−30
Watch Dogs: Legion	24−27

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	27−30
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	21−24
Battlefield 5	45−50
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	35−40
Cyberpunk 2077	21−24
Far Cry 5	35−40
Far Cry New Dawn	35−40
Forza Horizon 4	45−50
Hitman 3	35−40
Horizon Zero Dawn	27−30
Metro Exodus	21−24
Red Dead Redemption 2	21−24
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	27−30
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	27−30
Watch Dogs: Legion	24−27

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	27−30
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	21−24
Battlefield 5	45−50
Cyberpunk 2077	21−24
Far Cry 5	35−40
Far Cry New Dawn	35−40
Forza Horizon 4	45−50
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	27−30
Watch Dogs: Legion	24−27

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	20−22
Hitman 3	21−24
Horizon Zero Dawn	18−20
Metro Exodus	12−14
Red Dead Redemption 2	10−11
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	16−18

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	14−16
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	10−11
Battlefield 5	27−30
Cyberpunk 2077	7−8
Far Cry 5	21−24
Far Cry New Dawn	24−27
Forza Horizon 4	24−27
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14
Watch Dogs: Legion	8−9

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	9−10
Hitman 3	12−14
Horizon Zero Dawn	10−11
Metro Exodus	6−7
Red Dead Redemption 2	7−8
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	8−9
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	8−9
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	6−7
Battlefield 5	14−16
Cyberpunk 2077	2−3
Far Cry 5	10−12
Far Cry New Dawn	12−14
Forza Horizon 4	18−20
Watch Dogs: Legion	5−6

Relative perfomance

Radeon HD 7970's performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop video cards.

GeForce GTX 760 Ti OEM 103.39

GeForce GTX 950 101.7

GeForce GTX 670 101.55

Radeon HD 7970 100

Radeon R9 M295X Mac Edition 98.67

GeForce GTX 1050 3 GB 98.08

GeForce GTX 1050 96.16

NVIDIA equivalent

According to our data, the closest NVIDIA alternative to Radeon HD 7970 is GeForce GTX 670, which is faster by 2% and higher by 3 positions in our ranking.

GeForce GTX670