GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh 4 GB vs Radeon HD 7970

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Primary details

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

Place in the ranking378not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation2.38no data
Power efficiency3.77no data
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2011−2020)Ampere (2020−2024)
GPU code nameTahitiGA107
Market segmentDesktopLaptop
Designreferenceno data
Release date22 December 2011 (12 years ago)6 July 2022 (2 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$549 no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

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 cores20482048
Core clock speedno data757 MHz
Boost clock speed925 MHz1125 MHz
Number of transistors4,313 million8,700 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm8 nm
Power consumption (TDP)300 Watt35 Watt
Texture fill rate118.472.00
Floating-point processing power3.789 TFLOPS4.608 TFLOPS
ROPs3232
TMUs12864
Tensor Coresno data64
Ray Tracing Coresno data16

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 supportPCIe 2.1 x16no data
InterfacePCIe 3.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x8
Length274 mmno data
Width2-slotno data
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pinNone

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 typeGDDR5GDDR6
Maximum RAM amount6 GB4 GB
Memory bus width384 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1375 MHz1375 MHz
Memory bandwidth264 GB/s176.0 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 Connectors1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPortPortable Device Dependent
Eyefinity+-
HDMI+-

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

CrossFire+-
FreeSync+-

API compatibility

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

DirectXDirectX® 1112 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model5.16.7
OpenGL4.64.6
OpenCL1.23.0
Vulkan-1.3
CUDA-8.6

Pros & cons summary


Recency 22 December 2011 6 July 2022
Maximum RAM amount 6 GB 4 GB
Chip lithography 28 nm 8 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 300 Watt 35 Watt

HD 7970 has a 50% higher maximum VRAM amount.

RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh 4 GB, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 10 years, a 250% more advanced lithography process, and 757.1% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 7970 and GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh 4 GB. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Radeon HD 7970 is a desktop card while GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh 4 GB is a notebook one.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

Vote for your favorite

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AMD Radeon HD 7970
Radeon HD 7970
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh 4 GB
GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh 4 GB

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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4.1 300 votes

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3.2 21 vote

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Questions & comments

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