GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 970 and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire, 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 970 stacks up against Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire 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 7970M Crossfire here:

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 970 Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire
Power consumption (TDP) 148 Watt 200 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pins
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 4 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort
Recommended system power (PSU) 500 Watt
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  • Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire has 35% more power consumption, than GeForce GTX 970.
  • GeForce GTX 970 is used in Desktops, and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire - in Laptops.
  • GeForce GTX 970 is build with Maxwell architecture, and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of GeForce GTX 970 is 200 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire.
  • GeForce GTX 970 and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire is 4793 MHz higher, than GeForce GTX 970.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 50−55 35−40
ultra / 1080p 30−35 21−24
QHD / 1440p 27−30 16−18
4K / 2160p 14−16 10−11
low / 720p 75−80 60−65
medium / 1080p 60−65 40−45
The average gaming FPS of GeForce GTX 970 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 37% more, than Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 970 Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire
Architecture Maxwell GCN
Code name GM204 Wimbledon XT
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 19 September 2014 1 May 2012
Pipelines 1664 2560
Core clock speed 1050 MHz 850 MHz
Boost Clock 1178 MHz
Transistor count 5,200 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 109 billion/sec
Floating-point performance 3,920 gflops
Length 10.5" (26.7 cm)
Memory bus width 256 Bit 2x 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 7.0 GB/s 4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 224 GB/s
Shared memory - -
G-SYNC support +
DirectX 12 (12_1) DirectX 11.1, Shader 5.0
Shader Model 6.4
OpenGL 4.4
OpenCL 1.2
Vulkan 1.1.126
CUDA +
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.48 kh/s
CUDA cores 1664
Bus support PCI Express 3.0
Height 4.376" (11.1 cm)
SLI options +
Multi monitor support 4 displays
HDCP +
Maximum VGA resolution 2048x1536
Audio input for HDMI Internal
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 478 Mh/s
Laptop size large
Decred / DCR (Decred) 1.51 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 22.21 Mh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) 291.61 Sol/s
GameStream +
GeForce ShadowPlay +
GPU Boost 2.0
GameWorks +
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