GeForce GTX 480M vs Radeon HD 5970

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 480M and Radeon HD 5970, 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 480M stacks up against Radeon HD 5970, check out specs charts below.

GeForce GTX 480M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: GeForce GTX 480M 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 480M here:

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 480M Radeon HD 5970
Power consumption (TDP) 100 Watt 294 Watt
Interface MXM-B (3.0) PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 1 GB
Display Connectors No outputs 2x DVI, 1x mini-DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 5970 has 194% more power consumption, than GeForce GTX 480M.
  • GeForce GTX 480M is connected by MXM-B (3.0), and Radeon HD 5970 uses PCIe 2.0 x16 interface.
  • GeForce GTX 480M has 1 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 5970.
  • GeForce GTX 480M is used in Laptops, and Radeon HD 5970 - in Desktops.
  • GeForce GTX 480M is build with Fermi architecture, and Radeon HD 5970 - with TeraScale 2.
  • Core clock speed of GeForce GTX 480M is 125 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 5970.
  • GeForce GTX 480M and Radeon HD 5970 are manufactured by 40 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 5970 is 2800 MHz higher, than GeForce GTX 480M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 10−11 10−12
ultra / 1080p 6−7 6−7
QHD / 1440p 0−1 1−2
low / 720p 21−24 24−27
medium / 1080p 12−14 14−16
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 5970 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 7% more, than GeForce GTX 480M.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 480M Radeon HD 5970
Architecture Fermi TeraScale 2
Code name N11E-GTX-A3 Hemlock
Type Laptop Desktop
Release date 25 May 2010 18 November 2009
Pipelines 352 1600
Core clock speed 850 MHz 725 MHz
Transistor count 3,100 million 2,154 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 40 nm
Texture fill rate 18.7 billion/sec 58.00
Floating-point performance 598.4 gflops 2x 2,320.0 gflops
Length 305 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1200 MHz 4000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 76.8 GB/s 128.0 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 12 API 11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model 5.1 5.0
OpenGL 4.5 4.4
OpenCL 1.1 1.2
Vulkan N/A N/A
CUDA +
Bus support PCI-E 2.0
SLI options +
Maximum VGA resolution 2048x1536
Laptop size large
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