GeForce 820A vs Radeon HD 8970M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce 820A and Radeon HD 8970M, there are a couple of things to consider. Cards with more VRAM in general perform better and allow you to play on higher graphics settings. Size also makes a difference. A model with a large heatsink can occupy up to three expansion slots on a motherboard. Be sure you have enough room in your PC case. When comparing GPUs with different architectures, more processing cores and even higher TFLOPS will not always translate to better performance. To help you decide which GPU you need, we have measured frame rates in a number of popular games. For more on how the GeForce 820A stacks up against Radeon HD 8970M, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 8970M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon HD 8970M is only used in laptop graphics. It has lower GPU clock speed compared to the desktop variant, which results in lower power consumption, but also 10-30% lower gaming performance. Check available laptop models with Radeon HD 8970M here:

Main Specs

  GeForce 820A Radeon HD 8970M
Power consumption (TDP) 15 Watt 100 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Memory type DDR3 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors No outputs No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 8970M has 566% more power consumption, than GeForce 820A.
  • GeForce 820A is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 8970M uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 8970M has 3 GB more memory, than GeForce 820A.
  • GeForce 820A is used in Desktops, and Radeon HD 8970M - in Laptops.
  • GeForce 820A is build with Fermi 2.0 architecture, and Radeon HD 8970M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon HD 8970M is 75 MHz higher, than GeForce 820A.
  • GeForce 820A and Radeon HD 8970M are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 8970M is 3000 MHz higher, than GeForce 820A.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 0−1 20−22
ultra / 1080p 12−14
QHD / 1440p 0−1 6−7
4K / 2160p 5−6
low / 720p 1−2 35−40
medium / 1080p 0−1 24−27
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 8970M in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 3600% more, than GeForce 820A.

Full Specs

  GeForce 820A Radeon HD 8970M
Architecture Fermi 2.0 GCN
Code name GF117 Neptune
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 17 March 2014 15 May 2013
Pipelines 96 1280
Core clock speed 775 MHz 850 MHz
Boost Clock 900 MHz
Transistor count 585 million 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 12.40 72.00
Floating-point performance 297.6 gflops 2,304 gflops
Memory bus width 64 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1800 MHz 4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 14.4 GB/s 153.6 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 12 (11_0) 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.1 5.1
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 1.1 1.2
Vulkan N/A 1.2.131
CUDA 2.1
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 273 Mh/s
Laptop size large
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