Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon HD 6970M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon HD 6970M, 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 Radeon HD 6870 stacks up against Radeon HD 6970M, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 6970M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon HD 6970M 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 6970M here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6870 Radeon HD 6970M
Power consumption (TDP) 151 Watt 75 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 MXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin None
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 6870 has 101% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 6970M.
  • Radeon HD 6870 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 6970M uses MXM-B (3.0) interface.
  • Radeon HD 6970M has 1 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 6870.
  • Radeon HD 6870 is used in Desktops, and Radeon HD 6970M - in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon HD 6970M are build with Terascale 2 architecture.
  • Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon HD 6970M are manufactured by 40 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 6870 is 150 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6970M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 10−12 10−12
ultra / 1080p 6−7 6−7
QHD / 1440p 1−2 1−2
low / 720p 24−27 24−27
medium / 1080p 12−14 14−16
Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon HD 6970M have the same average FPS in Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6870 Radeon HD 6970M
Architecture Terascale 2 Terascale 2
Code name RV940 Barts Blackcomb XT
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 22 October 2010 6 January 2011
Pipelines 1120 960
Core clock speed 680 MHz
Boost Clock 900 MHz
Transistor count 1,700 million 1,700 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 40 nm
Texture fill rate 50.40 32.64
Floating-point performance 2,016.0 gflops 1,305.6 gflops
Length 220 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1050 MHz 900 MHz
Memory bandwidth 134.4 GB/s 115.2 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX 11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model 5.0 5.0
OpenGL 4.4 4.4
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan N/A
Bus support PCIe 2.0 x16
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 213 Mh/s 118 Mh/s
Laptop size large
Eyefinity +
Design reference
CrossFire +
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