GeForce GTX 960 vs Radeon HD 7970

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 960 and Radeon HD 7970, 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 GTX 960 stacks up against Radeon HD 7970, check out specs charts below.

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 960 Radeon HD 7970
Power consumption (TDP) 120 Watt 300 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 1x 6-pins 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 4 GB 3 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
Recommended system power (PSU) 400 Watt
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  • Radeon HD 7970 has 150% more power consumption, than GeForce GTX 960.
  • Both video cards are using PCIe 3.0 x16 interface connection to a motherboard.
  • GeForce GTX 960 has 1 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 7970.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • GeForce GTX 960 is build with Maxwell architecture, and Radeon HD 7970 - with GCN.
  • GeForce GTX 960 and Radeon HD 7970 are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Radeon HD 7970 is 265 mm longer, than GeForce GTX 960.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7970 is 1368 MHz higher, than GeForce GTX 960.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 35−40 35−40
ultra / 1080p 21−24 21−24
QHD / 1440p 16−18 16−18
4K / 2160p 10−11 10−11
low / 720p 60−65 60−65
medium / 1080p 40−45 40−45
GeForce GTX 960 and Radeon HD 7970 have the same average FPS in Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 960 Radeon HD 7970
Architecture Maxwell GCN
Code name GM206 Tahiti XT
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 22 January 2015 22 December 2011
Pipelines 1024 2048
Core clock speed 1127 MHz
Boost Clock 1178 MHz 925 MHz
Transistor count 2,940 million 4,313 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 72 billion/sec 118.4
Floating-point performance 2,413 gflops 3,789 gflops
Length 9.5" (24.1 cm) 274 mm
Memory bus width 128 Bit 384 Bit
Memory clock speed 7.0 GB/s 1375 MHz
Memory bandwidth 112 GB/s 264 GB/s
Shared memory - -
G-SYNC support +
DirectX 12 (12_1)
Shader Model 6.4 5.1
OpenGL 4.4 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan 1.1.126
CUDA +
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.27 kh/s
FreeSync +
CUDA cores 1024
Bus support PCI Express 3.0 PCIe 2.1 x16
Height 4.376" (11.1 cm)
SLI options +
Multi monitor support 4 displays
HDMI +
HDCP +
Maximum VGA resolution 2048x1536
Audio input for HDMI Internal
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 318 Mh/s 485 Mh/s
Eyefinity +
Design reference
CrossFire +
Decred / DCR (Decred) 0.92 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 8 Mh/s 20.71 Mh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) 141.47 Sol/s
GameStream +
GeForce ShadowPlay +
GPU Boost 2.0
GameWorks +
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