Mobility Radeon HD 4870 vs Radeon HD 6970

In this comparison between Mobility Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 6970 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 Mobility Radeon HD 4870 will be the best choice, for others Radeon HD 6970 will be their preference. Study the comparison tables below and make your choice.

Mobility Radeon HD 4870 is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Mobility Radeon HD 4870 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 Mobility Radeon HD 4870 here:

Main Specs

  Mobility Radeon HD 4870 Radeon HD 6970
Power consumption (TDP) 550 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
Memory type GDDR5 DDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
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  • Both video cards are using PCIe 2.0 x16 interface connection to a motherboard.
  • Radeon HD 6970 has 1 GB more memory, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.
  • Mobility Radeon HD 4870 is used in Laptops, and Radeon HD 6970 - in Desktops.
  • Mobility Radeon HD 4870 is build with Terascale 1 architecture, and Radeon HD 6970 - with Terascale 2.
  • Mobility Radeon HD 4870 is manufactured by 55 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 6970 - by 40 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 6970 is 487 MHz higher, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 7−8 14−16
ultra / 1080p 4−5 9−10
QHD / 1440p 0−1 3−4
low / 720p 16−18 30−35
medium / 1080p 8−9 18−20
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 6970 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 111% more, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.

Full Specs

  Mobility Radeon HD 4870 Radeon HD 6970
Architecture Terascale 1 Terascale 2
Code name M98-XT Cayman
Type Laptop Desktop
Release date 9 January 2009 14 December 2010
Pipelines 800 1536
Core clock speed 550 MHz
Boost Clock 880 MHz
Transistor count 956 million 2,640 million
Manufacturing process technology 55 nm 40 nm
Texture fill rate 22.00 84.48
Floating-point performance 880.0 gflops 2,703.4 gflops
Length 267 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 888 MHz 1375 MHz
Memory bandwidth 56.83 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 10.1 (10_1)
Shader Model 4.1 5.0
OpenGL 3.3 4.4
OpenCL 1.1 1.2
Vulkan N/A
Bus support PCIe 2.0 x16
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 273 Mh/s
Laptop size large
Eyefinity +
Design reference
CrossFire +
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