Quadro FX 3800 vs Radeon HD 7970M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Quadro FX 3800 and Radeon HD 7970M, 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 Quadro FX 3800 stacks up against Radeon HD 7970M, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 7970M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon HD 7970M 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 here:

Main Specs

  Quadro FX 3800 Radeon HD 7970M
Power consumption (TDP) 108 Watt 100 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 MXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectors 1x 6-pin None
Memory type GDDR3 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 2x DisplayPort No outputs
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  • Quadro FX 3800 has 8% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 7970M.
  • Quadro FX 3800 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 7970M uses MXM-B (3.0) interface.
  • Radeon HD 7970M has 1 GB more memory, than Quadro FX 3800.
  • Quadro FX 3800 is used in Desktops, and Radeon HD 7970M - in Laptops.
  • Quadro FX 3800 is build with Tesla 2.0 architecture, and Radeon HD 7970M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon HD 7970M is 250 MHz higher, than Quadro FX 3800.
  • Quadro FX 3800 is manufactured by 55 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 7970M - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7970M is 3200 MHz higher, than Quadro FX 3800.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 0−1 18−20
ultra / 1080p 0−1 10−12
QHD / 1440p 0−1 5−6
4K / 2160p 4−5
low / 720p 10−11 35−40
medium / 1080p 1−2 21−24
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7970M in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 400% more, than Quadro FX 3800.

Full Specs

  Quadro FX 3800 Radeon HD 7970M
Architecture Tesla 2.0 GCN
Code name GT200B Wimbledon XT
Type Workstation Laptop
Release date 30 March 2009 1 May 2012
Pipelines 192 1280
Core clock speed 600 MHz 850 MHz
Transistor count 1,400 million 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 55 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 38.40 68.00
Floating-point performance 462.3 gflops 2,176 gflops
Length 198 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1600 MHz 4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 51.2 GB/s 153.6 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 11.1 (10_0) 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 4.0 5.1
OpenGL 3.3 4.6
OpenCL 1.1 1.2
Vulkan N/A 1.2.131
CUDA 1.3
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 254 Mh/s
Laptop size large
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