ION 2 vs Radeon HD 8970M Crossfire

Aggregate performance score

We've compared Radeon HD 8970M Crossfire and ION 2, covering specs and all relevant benchmarks.

HD 8970M Crossfire
2012
200 Watt
16.88
+5527%

HD 8970M Crossfire outperforms ION 2 by a whopping 5527% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking3511380
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency6.541.16
ArchitectureGCN (2012−2015)Tesla 2.0 (2007−2013)
GPU code nameNeptune CFGT218
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date1 May 2012 (13 years ago)3 June 2008 (17 years ago)

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 cores256016
Core clock speed850 MHz500 MHz
Boost clock speed900 MHzno data
Number of transistorsno data260 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)200 Watt20 Watt
Texture fill rateno data4.000
Floating-point processing powerno data0.03424 TFLOPS
ROPsno data4
TMUsno data8
L2 Cacheno data32 KB

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).

Laptop sizelargeno data
Interfaceno dataPCIe 2.0 x16

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 typeGDDR5System Shared
Maximum RAM amountno dataSystem Shared
Memory bus width2x 256 BitSystem Shared
Memory clock speed4800 MHzSystem Shared
Shared memory-+

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 Connectorsno dataNo outputs

API and SDK support

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

DirectX11.111.1 (10_1)
Shader Modelno data4.1
OpenGLno data3.3
OpenCLno data1.1
Vulkan-N/A
CUDA-1.2

Synthetic benchmarks

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score.

HD 8970M Crossfire 16.88
+5527%
ION 2 0.30

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.

HD 8970M Crossfire 34215
+4626%
ION 2 724

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:

Full HD69
+6800%
1−2
−6800%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low

Counter-Strike 2 95−100
+9700%
1−2
−9700%
Cyberpunk 2077 35−40
+3600%
1−2
−3600%
Hogwarts Legacy 30−35
+560%
5−6
−560%

Full HD
Medium

Battlefield 5 70−75
+7300%
1−2
−7300%
Counter-Strike 2 95−100
+9700%
1−2
−9700%
Cyberpunk 2077 35−40
+3600%
1−2
−3600%
Far Cry 5 55−60
+5600%
1−2
−5600%
Fortnite 90−95
+9300%
1−2
−9300%
Forza Horizon 4 70−75
+1675%
4−5
−1675%
Forza Horizon 5 50−55 0−1
Hogwarts Legacy 30−35
+560%
5−6
−560%
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 65−70
+829%
7−8
−829%
Valorant 130−140
+419%
24−27
−419%

Full HD
High

Battlefield 5 70−75
+7300%
1−2
−7300%
Counter-Strike 2 95−100
+9700%
1−2
−9700%
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 128
+885%
12−14
−885%
Cyberpunk 2077 35−40
+3600%
1−2
−3600%
Dota 2 100−110
+1044%
9−10
−1044%
Far Cry 5 55−60
+5600%
1−2
−5600%
Fortnite 90−95
+9300%
1−2
−9300%
Forza Horizon 4 70−75
+1675%
4−5
−1675%
Forza Horizon 5 50−55 0−1
Grand Theft Auto V 65−70
+6400%
1−2
−6400%
Hogwarts Legacy 30−35
+560%
5−6
−560%
Metro Exodus 35−40 0−1
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 65−70
+829%
7−8
−829%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 45−50
+860%
5−6
−860%
Valorant 130−140
+419%
24−27
−419%

Full HD
Ultra

Battlefield 5 70−75
+7300%
1−2
−7300%
Cyberpunk 2077 35−40
+3600%
1−2
−3600%
Dota 2 100−110
+1044%
9−10
−1044%
Far Cry 5 55−60
+5600%
1−2
−5600%
Forza Horizon 4 70−75
+1675%
4−5
−1675%
Hogwarts Legacy 30−35
+560%
5−6
−560%
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 65−70
+829%
7−8
−829%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 45−50
+860%
5−6
−860%
Valorant 130−140
+419%
24−27
−419%

Full HD
Epic

Fortnite 90−95
+9300%
1−2
−9300%

1440p
High

Counter-Strike 2 35−40
+1650%
2−3
−1650%
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 120−130 0−1
Grand Theft Auto V 27−30 0−1
Metro Exodus 21−24 0−1
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 160−170
+5367%
3−4
−5367%
Valorant 160−170
+8300%
2−3
−8300%

1440p
Ultra

Battlefield 5 45−50 0−1
Cyberpunk 2077 16−18 0−1
Far Cry 5 35−40 0−1
Forza Horizon 4 40−45
+4200%
1−2
−4200%
Hogwarts Legacy 18−20 0−1
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 24−27
+2500%
1−2
−2500%

1440p
Epic

Fortnite 40−45 0−1

4K
High

Counter-Strike 2 14−16 0−1
Grand Theft Auto V 30−35
+129%
14−16
−129%
Hogwarts Legacy 10−12 0−1
Metro Exodus 14−16 0−1
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 24−27 0−1
Valorant 95−100
+4800%
2−3
−4800%

4K
Ultra

Battlefield 5 24−27 0−1
Counter-Strike 2 14−16 0−1
Cyberpunk 2077 7−8 0−1
Dota 2 60−65
+6000%
1−2
−6000%
Far Cry 5 18−20 0−1
Forza Horizon 4 30−33 0−1
Hogwarts Legacy 10−12 0−1
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 16−18
+1600%
1−2
−1600%

4K
Epic

Fortnite 18−20
+800%
2−3
−800%

This is how HD 8970M Crossfire and ION 2 compete in popular games:

  • HD 8970M Crossfire is 6800% faster in 1080p

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

  • in PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS, with 1440p resolution and the High Preset, the HD 8970M Crossfire is 5367% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

  • Without exception, HD 8970M Crossfire surpassed ION 2 in all 30 of our tests.

Pros & cons summary


Performance score 16.88 0.30
Recency 1 May 2012 3 June 2008
Chip lithography 28 nm 40 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 200 Watt 20 Watt

HD 8970M Crossfire has a 5526.7% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 3 years, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

ION 2, on the other hand, has 900% lower power consumption.

The Radeon HD 8970M Crossfire is our recommended choice as it beats the ION 2 in performance tests.

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AMD Radeon HD 8970M Crossfire
Radeon HD 8970M Crossfire
NVIDIA ION 2
ION 2

Other comparisons

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Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


4.8 4 votes

Rate Radeon HD 8970M Crossfire on a scale of 1 to 5:

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2.9 27 votes

Rate ION 2 on a scale of 1 to 5:

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