GeForce GTX 970M vs Radeon R9 380

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 970M and Radeon R9 380, 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 970M stacks up against Radeon R9 380, check out specs charts below.

GeForce GTX 970M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: GeForce GTX 970M 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 GeForce GTX 970M here:

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 970M Radeon R9 380
Power consumption (TDP) 190 Watt
Interface MXM-B (3.0) PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None 2 x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 6 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors No outputs 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
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  • GeForce GTX 970M is connected by MXM-B (3.0), and Radeon R9 380 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • GeForce GTX 970M has 2 GB more memory, than Radeon R9 380.
  • GeForce GTX 970M is used in Laptops, and Radeon R9 380 - in Desktops.
  • GeForce GTX 970M is build with Maxwell architecture, and Radeon R9 380 - with GCN.
  • GeForce GTX 970M and Radeon R9 380 are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of GeForce GTX 970M is 1530 MHz higher, than Radeon R9 380.

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 970M and Radeon R9 380 have the same average FPS in Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 970M Radeon R9 380
Architecture Maxwell GCN
Code name GM204 Tonga Pro
Type Laptop Desktop
Release date 7 October 2014 26 June 2015
Pipelines 1280 1792
Core clock speed 924 MHz
Boost Clock 1038 MHz 970 MHz
Transistor count 5,200 million 5,000 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 83.04 108.6
Floating-point performance 2,657 gflops 3,476 gflops
Length 221 mm
Memory bus width 192 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 2500 MHz 970 MHz
Memory bandwidth 120 GB/s 182.4 GB/s
Shared memory - -
G-SYNC support +
DirectX 12 (12_1)
Shader Model 6.4 6.3
OpenGL 4.5 4.5
OpenCL 1.1 2.0
Vulkan 1.1.126 +
CUDA +
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.48 kh/s
FreeSync +
CUDA cores 1280
Bus support PCI Express 3.0 PCIe 3.0
SLI options +
HDMI + +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 314 Mh/s 404 Mh/s
Laptop size large
DisplayPort Multimode (DP++) support +
H.264, VC1, MPEG2 1080p video decoder +
Optimus +
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
PowerTune +
TrueAudio +
ZeroCore +
Mantle +
Design reference
Bridgeless CrossFire +
Number of Eyefinity displays 6
DisplayPort support +
CrossFire +
VCE +
DDMA audio +
Decred / DCR (Decred) 0.66 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 18 Mh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) 168.45 Sol/s
Compute units 28
Form factor full height / full length / dual slot
GameStream +
GeForce ShadowPlay +
GPU Boost 2.0
GameWorks +
BatteryBoost +
High bandwidth memory (HBM) -
LiquidVR +
FRTC +
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