Radeon HD 7970M vs Radeon R7 260

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 7970M and Radeon R7 260, 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 7970M stacks up against Radeon R7 260, 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

  Radeon HD 7970M Radeon R7 260
Power consumption (TDP) 100 Watt 115 Watt
Interface MXM-B (3.0) PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None 1 x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
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  • Radeon R7 260 has 15% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 7970M.
  • Radeon HD 7970M is connected by MXM-B (3.0), and Radeon R7 260 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 7970M and Radeon R7 260 have maximum RAM of 2 GB.
  • Radeon HD 7970M is used in Laptops, and Radeon R7 260 - in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 7970M is build with GCN architecture, and Radeon R7 260 - with GCN 2.0.
  • Radeon HD 7970M and Radeon R7 260 are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7970M is 3175 MHz higher, than Radeon R7 260.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 18−20 14−16
ultra / 1080p 10−12 8−9
QHD / 1440p 5−6 3−4
4K / 2160p 4−5
low / 720p 35−40 30−35
medium / 1080p 21−24 18−20
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7970M in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 26% more, than Radeon R7 260.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 7970M Radeon R7 260
Architecture GCN GCN 2.0
Code name Wimbledon XT Bonaire
Type Laptop Desktop
Release date 1 May 2012 17 December 2013
Pipelines 1280 768
Core clock speed 850 MHz
Boost Clock 1100 MHz
Transistor count 2,800 million 2,080 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 68.00 48.00
Floating-point performance 2,176 gflops 1,536 gflops
Length 170 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 4800 MHz 1625 MHz
Memory bandwidth 153.6 GB/s 104 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.1 6.3
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 2.0
Vulkan 1.2.131
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 3.0
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 254 Mh/s 240 Mh/s
Laptop size large
Eyefinity +
Design reference
DisplayPort support +
DDMA audio +
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