Radeon HD 7870 vs HD 7990

Place in performance ranking	336	375
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	1.65	2.76
Architecture	GCN 1.0 (2012−2020)	GCN (2011−2017)
GPU code name	Malta	Pitcairn XT
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	24 April 2013 (11 years ago)	5 March 2012 (12 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$999	$412.83
Current price	$486 (0.5x MSRP)	$200 (0.5x MSRP)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

HD 7870 has 67% better value for money than HD 7990.

Detailed specifications

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 cores	2048	1280
Core clock speed	950 MHz	1000 MHz
Boost clock speed	1000 MHz	no data
Number of transistors	4,313 million	2800 Million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	375 Watt	175 Watt
Texture fill rate	128.0	80.00
Floating-point performance	2x 4,096 gflops	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).

Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	307 mm	241 mm
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	2x 8-pin	2x 6-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	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	3 GB	2 GB
Memory bus width	384 Bit	256 Bit
Memory clock speed	6000 MHz	4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth	288.0 GB/s	153.6 GB/s
Shared memory	no data	-

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 Connectors	1x DVI, 4x mini-DisplayPort	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
Eyefinity	no data	+
HDMI	no data	+

API compatibility

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

DirectX	12 (11_1)	12 (11_1)
Shader Model	5.1	5.1
OpenGL	4.6	4.6
OpenCL	1.2	1.2
Vulkan	1.2.131	1.2.131

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 7990 14.38
+20%

HD 7870 11.98

HD 7990 outperforms HD 7870 by 20% based on our aggregated 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 7990 5565
+20.1%

HD 7870 4634

HD 7990 outperforms HD 7870 by 20% in Passmark.