Radeon RX 6850 XT vs HD 7970 GHz Edition
Contents
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | not rated | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Architecture | GCN 1.0 (2012−2020) | RDNA 2.0 (2020−2025) |
| GPU code name | Tahiti | Navi 21 |
| Market segment | Desktop | Desktop |
| Design | reference | no data |
| Release date | 22 June 2012 (13 years ago) | 2022 (3 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $499 | $649 |
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 | 2048 | 4608 |
| Boost clock speed | 1050 MHz | 2250 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 4,313 million | 26,800 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 7 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 250 Watt | 325 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 134.4 | 648.0 |
| Floating-point processing power | 4.301 TFLOPS | 20.74 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 32 | 128 |
| TMUs | 128 | 288 |
| L1 Cache | 512 KB | no data |
| L2 Cache | 768 KB | no data |
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).
| Bus support | PCIe 2.1 x16 | no data |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| Length | 274 mm | 267 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin | 2x 8-pin |
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 | GDDR6 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 16 GB |
| Memory bus width | 384 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 1500 MHz | 18 GB/s |
| Memory bandwidth | 288 GB/s | 576.0 GB/s |
| Resizable BAR | - | + |
Connectivity and outputs
This section shows the types and number of video connectors on each GPU. The data applies specifically to desktop reference models (for example, NVIDIA’s Founders Edition). OEM partners often modify both the number and types of ports. On notebook GPUs, video‐output options are determined by the laptop’s design rather than the graphics chip itself.
| Display Connectors | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort | 1x HDMI, 2x DisplayPort, 1x USB Type-C |
| Eyefinity | + | - |
| HDMI | + | + |
Supported technologies
Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.
| CrossFire | + | - |
| FreeSync | + | - |
API and SDK support
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | DirectX® 11 | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | 6.5 |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | 2.1 |
| Vulkan | - | 1.3 |
Pros & cons summary
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 16 GB |
| Chip lithography | 28 nm | 7 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 250 Watt | 325 Watt |
HD 7970 GHz Edition has 30% lower power consumption.
RX 6850 XT, on the other hand, has a 433.3% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 300% more advanced lithography process.
We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and Radeon RX 6850 XT. We've got no test results to judge.
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