GeForce GTX 960M vs Radeon HD 8970M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 960M and Radeon HD 8970M, 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 960M stacks up against Radeon HD 8970M, check out specs charts below.

GeForce GTX 960M and Radeon HD 8970M are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: GeForce GTX 960M and Radeon HD 8970M are only used in laptop graphics. They have 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 960M or Radeon HD 8970M here:

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 960M Radeon HD 8970M
Power consumption (TDP) 75 Watt 100 Watt
Interface MXM-B (3.0) PCIe 3.0 x16
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 4 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors No outputs No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 8970M has 33% more power consumption, than GeForce GTX 960M.
  • GeForce GTX 960M is connected by MXM-B (3.0), and Radeon HD 8970M uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • GeForce GTX 960M and Radeon HD 8970M have maximum RAM of 4 GB.
  • Both cards are used in Laptops.
  • GeForce GTX 960M is build with Maxwell architecture, and Radeon HD 8970M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of GeForce GTX 960M is 246 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 8970M.
  • GeForce GTX 960M and Radeon HD 8970M are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 8970M is 2300 MHz higher, than GeForce GTX 960M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 18−20 20−22
ultra / 1080p 10−11 12−14
QHD / 1440p 4−5 6−7
4K / 2160p 4−5 5−6
low / 720p 35−40 35−40
medium / 1080p 21−24 24−27
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 8970M in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 12% more, than GeForce GTX 960M.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 960M Radeon HD 8970M
Architecture Maxwell GCN
Code name N16P-GX Neptune
Type Laptop Laptop
Release date 12 March 2015 15 May 2013
Pipelines 640 1280
Core clock speed 1096 MHz 850 MHz
Boost Clock 1202 MHz 900 MHz
Transistor count 1,870 million 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 47.04 72.00
Floating-point performance 1,505 gflops 2,304 gflops
Memory bus width 128 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 2500 MHz 4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 80 GB/s 153.6 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX 12 (11_0) 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.1 5.1
OpenGL 4.5 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan 1.1.126 1.2.131
CUDA +
CUDA cores 640
Bus support PCI Express 3.0
SLI options +
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 175 Mh/s 273 Mh/s
Laptop size medium sized large
DisplayPort Multimode (DP++) support +
H.264, VC1, MPEG2 1080p video decoder +
Optimus +
GameStream +
GeForce ShadowPlay +
GPU Boost 2.0
GameWorks +
BatteryBoost +
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