GeForce GTX 590 vs Radeon HD 7870

In this comparison between GeForce GTX 590 and Radeon HD 7870 you will find out which graphics card performs better in today's games. Bear in mind that third-party versions may have more efficient cooling and higher clock speeds. This will increase cards' performance, though not by much. In addition to raw power you should also take into account the dimensions. Thicker models simply will not fit into a small mini-ITX case. The resolution of your monitor also affects the choice, since 4K gameplay requires a more powerful GPU. And don't overspend on the graphics card. Other parts of your build may also need to be upgraded, save some money for the CPU or power supply. For some people GeForce GTX 590 will be the best choice, for others Radeon HD 7870 will be their preference. Study the comparison tables below and make your choice.

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 590 Radeon HD 7870
Power consumption (TDP) 365 Watt 175 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors Two 8-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 3072 MB (1536 MB per GPU) 2 GB
Display Connectors 3x DVI, 1x mini-DisplayPort
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  • GeForce GTX 590 has 108% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 7870.
  • GeForce GTX 590 has 3070 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 7870.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • GeForce GTX 590 is build with Fermi architecture, and Radeon HD 7870 - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of GeForce GTX 590 is 215 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7870.
  • GeForce GTX 590 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 7870 - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7870 is 3093 MHz higher, than GeForce GTX 590.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 16−18 24−27
ultra / 1080p 10−11 14−16
QHD / 1440p 4−5 9−10
4K / 2160p 6−7
low / 720p 35−40 45−50
medium / 1080p 21−24 30−33
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7870 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 38% more, than GeForce GTX 590.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 590 Radeon HD 7870
Architecture Fermi GCN
Code name GF110 Pitcairn XT
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 24 March 2011 5 March 2012
Pipelines 1024 1280
Core clock speed 1215 MHz 1000 MHz
Transistor count 3,000 million 2800 Million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 77.7 billion/sec
Floating-point performance 2x 1,244.2 gflops
Length 11" (280 mm) (27.9 cm)
Memory bus width 768-bit (384-bit per GPU) 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1707 MHz 4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 327.7 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX 12 (11_0) DirectX 11.1, Shader 5.1
Shader Model 5.1
OpenGL 4.2
OpenCL 1.1
Vulkan N/A
CUDA +
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.39 kh/s
CUDA cores 1024
Bus support 16x PCI-E 2.0
Height 4.376" (111 mm) (11.1 cm)
SLI options +
Multi monitor support +
HDMI +
Maximum VGA resolution 2048x1536
Audio input for HDMI Internal
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 107 Mh/s
Eyefinity +
Decred / DCR (Decred) 0.63 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 16.6 Mh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) 145 Sol/s
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