NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile vs AMD Radeon HD 7970

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Combined performance score

HD 7970
13.54

GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile outperforms Radeon HD 7970 by 174% in our combined benchmark results.

General info

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

Place in performance ranking350119
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Value for money4.00no data
ArchitectureGCN (2011−2017)Ampere (2020−2022)
GPU code nameTahiti XTGN20-E5 GA104
Market segmentDesktopLaptop
Designreferenceno data
Release date22 December 2011 (12 years old)4 January 2021 (3 years old)
Launch price (MSRP)$549 no data
Current price$89 (0.2x MSRP)no data
Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

Technical specs

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores20485120
Core clock speedno data780 - 1100 MHz
Boost clock speed925 MHz1290 - 1620 MHz
Number of transistors4,313 million17,400 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm8 nm
Power consumption (TDP)300 Watt125 Watt
Texture fill rate118.4287.0
Floating-point performance3,789 gflopsno data

Size and compatibility

Information on Radeon HD 7970 and GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility). For notebook video cards it's notebook size, connection slot and bus, if the video card is inserted into a slot instead of being soldered to the notebook motherboard.

Laptop sizeno datalarge
Bus supportPCIe 2.1 x16no data
InterfacePCIe 3.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16
Length274 mmno data
Width2-slotno data
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pinno data

Memory

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 GB8 GB
Memory bus width384 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed1375 MHz14000 MHz
Memory bandwidth264 GB/s320.0 GB/s
Shared memory--

Video outputs and ports

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-DisplayPort1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort
Eyefinity+no data
HDMI++
DisplayPort support-no data

Technologies

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

AppAcceleration-no data
CrossFire1no data
Enduro-no data
FreeSync1no data
HD3D-no data
PowerTune-no data
TrueAudio-no data
ZeroCore-no data

API support

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

DirectXDirectX® 1112 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model5.16.5
OpenGL4.64.6
OpenCL1.22.0
Vulkanno data1.2
Mantle-no data
CUDAno data8.5

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark performance comparison. 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 13.54
RTX 3070 Mobile 37.07
+174%

GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile outperforms Radeon HD 7970 by 174% in our combined benchmark results.


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
RTX 3070 Mobile 14364
+174%

GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile outperforms Radeon HD 7970 by 174% in Passmark.

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
RTX 3070 Mobile 77148
+212%

GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile outperforms Radeon HD 7970 by 212% in 3DMark Vantage Performance.

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
RTX 3070 Mobile 33996
+338%

GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile outperforms Radeon HD 7970 by 338% in 3DMark 11 Performance GPU.

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
RTX 3070 Mobile 25478
+271%

GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile outperforms Radeon HD 7970 by 271% in 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics.

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
RTX 3070 Mobile 136558
+212%

GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile outperforms Radeon HD 7970 by 212% in 3DMark Cloud Gate GPU.

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

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

900p105
−167%
280−290
+167%
Full HD93
−25.8%
117
+25.8%
1440p27−30
−185%
77
+185%
4K16−18
−206%
49
+206%

Performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 21−24
−467%
119
+467%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 27−30
−139%
65−70
+139%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 21−24
−314%
91
+314%
Battlefield 5 45−50
−137%
100−110
+137%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 35−40
−189%
100−110
+189%
Cyberpunk 2077 21−24
−410%
107
+410%
Far Cry 5 35−40
−240%
119
+240%
Far Cry New Dawn 35−40
−203%
112
+203%
Forza Horizon 4 45−50
−294%
189
+294%
Hitman 3 35−40
−300%
148
+300%
Horizon Zero Dawn 27−30
−232%
93
+232%
Red Dead Redemption 2 21−24
−370%
108
+370%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 27−30
−400%
140
+400%
Watch Dogs: Legion 24−27
−256%
89
+256%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 27−30
−139%
65−70
+139%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 21−24
−245%
76
+245%
Battlefield 5 45−50
−191%
134
+191%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 35−40
−189%
100−110
+189%
Cyberpunk 2077 21−24
−319%
88
+319%
Far Cry 5 35−40
−226%
114
+226%
Far Cry New Dawn 35−40
−192%
108
+192%
Forza Horizon 4 45−50
−292%
188
+292%
Hitman 3 35−40
−273%
138
+273%
Horizon Zero Dawn 27−30
−200%
84
+200%
Metro Exodus 21−24
−362%
97
+362%
Red Dead Redemption 2 21−24
−187%
66
+187%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 27−30
−332%
121
+332%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 27−30
−507%
170
+507%
Watch Dogs: Legion 24−27
−200%
75
+200%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 27−30
−139%
65−70
+139%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 21−24
−209%
68
+209%
Battlefield 5 45−50
−174%
126
+174%
Cyberpunk 2077 21−24
−252%
74
+252%
Far Cry 5 35−40
−206%
107
+206%
Far Cry New Dawn 35−40
−159%
96
+159%
Forza Horizon 4 45−50
−248%
167
+248%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 27−30
−236%
94
+236%
Watch Dogs: Legion 24−27
−140%
60
+140%

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 20−22
−205%
60−65
+205%
Hitman 3 21−24
−367%
98
+367%
Horizon Zero Dawn 18−20
−232%
63
+232%
Metro Exodus 12−14
−392%
59
+392%
Red Dead Redemption 2 10−11
−280%
38
+280%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 16−18
−424%
89
+424%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 14−16
−186%
40−45
+186%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 10−11
−430%
53
+430%
Battlefield 5 27−30
−278%
102
+278%
Cyberpunk 2077 7−8
−571%
47
+571%
Far Cry 5 21−24
−314%
91
+314%
Far Cry New Dawn 24−27
−279%
91
+279%
Forza Horizon 4 24−27
−438%
140
+438%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 12−14
−300%
50−55
+300%
Watch Dogs: Legion 8−9
−588%
55
+588%

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 9−10
−267%
30−35
+267%
Hitman 3 12−14
−208%
35−40
+208%
Horizon Zero Dawn 10−11
−70%
17
+70%
Metro Exodus 6−7
−517%
37
+517%
Red Dead Redemption 2 7−8
−243%
24
+243%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 8−9
−500%
48
+500%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 12−14
−433%
64
+433%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 8−9
−213%
24−27
+213%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 6−7
−450%
33
+450%
Battlefield 5 14−16
−350%
63
+350%
Cyberpunk 2077 2−3
−1000%
22
+1000%
Far Cry 5 10−12
−364%
51
+364%
Far Cry New Dawn 12−14
−346%
58
+346%
Forza Horizon 4 18−20
−417%
93
+417%
Watch Dogs: Legion 5−6
−440%
27
+440%

This is how HD 7970 and RTX 3070 Mobile compete in popular games:

900p resolution:

  • RTX 3070 Mobile is 167% faster than HD 7970

1080p resolution:

  • RTX 3070 Mobile is 25.8% faster than HD 7970

1440p resolution:

  • RTX 3070 Mobile is 185% faster than HD 7970

4K resolution:

  • RTX 3070 Mobile is 206% faster than HD 7970

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

  • in Cyberpunk 2077, with 4K resolution and the Ultra Preset, the RTX 3070 Mobile is 1000% faster than the HD 7970.

All in all, in popular games:

  • Without exception, RTX 3070 Mobile surpassed HD 7970 in all 68 of our tests.

Advantages and disadvantages


Performance score 13.54 37.07
Recency 22 December 2011 4 January 2021
Maximum RAM amount 6 GB 8 GB
Chip lithography 28 nm 8 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 300 Watt 125 Watt

The GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon HD 7970 in performance tests.

Be aware that Radeon HD 7970 is a desktop card while GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile is a notebook one.


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

User ratings

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


AMD Radeon HD 7970
Radeon HD 7970
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile
GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile

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Questions and comments

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