Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon HD 7950

In this comparison between Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 7950 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 Radeon HD 6970 will be the best choice, for others Radeon HD 7950 will be their preference. Study the comparison tables below and make your choice.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6970 Radeon HD 7950
Power consumption (TDP) 550 Watt 200 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin 2x 6-pin
Memory type DDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 3 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 6970 has 175% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 7950.
  • Radeon HD 6970 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 7950 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 7950 has 1 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 6970.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 6970 is build with Terascale 2 architecture, and Radeon HD 7950 - with GCN 1.0.
  • Radeon HD 6970 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 7950 - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Both graphics cards are the same length of 267 mm.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 6970 is 125 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7950.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 14−16 35−40
ultra / 1080p 9−10 21−24
QHD / 1440p 3−4 16−18
4K / 2160p 10−11
low / 720p 30−35 60−65
medium / 1080p 18−20 40−45
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7950 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 140% more, than Radeon HD 6970.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6970 Radeon HD 7950
Architecture Terascale 2 GCN 1.0
Code name Cayman Tahiti
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 14 December 2010 31 January 2012
Pipelines 1536 1792
Boost Clock 880 MHz 1250 MHz
Transistor count 2,640 million 4,313 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 84.48 89.60
Floating-point performance 2,703.4 gflops 2,867 gflops
Length 267 mm 267 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 384 Bit
Memory clock speed 1375 MHz 1250 MHz
Memory bandwidth 240 GB/s
Shader Model 5.0 5.1
OpenGL 4.4 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.56 kh/s
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
HDMI + +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 273 Mh/s 381 Mh/s
Eyefinity + +
PowerTune +
ZeroCore +
Design reference reference
Number of Eyefinity displays 6
CrossFire + +
Decred / DCR (Decred) 0.78 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 13.86 Mh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) 250 Sol/s
Compute units 28
AppAcceleration +
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