Radeon HD 7970M vs Radeon HD 8970M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 7970M 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 Radeon HD 7970M stacks up against Radeon HD 8970M, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 7970M and Radeon HD 8970M are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: Radeon HD 7970M 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 Radeon HD 7970M or Radeon HD 8970M here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 7970M Radeon HD 8970M
Power consumption (TDP) 100 Watt 100 Watt
Interface MXM-B (3.0) PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors No outputs No outputs
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  • Both graphics cards have the same power consumption of 100 Watt.
  • Radeon HD 7970M is connected by MXM-B (3.0), and Radeon HD 8970M uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 8970M has 2 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 7970M.
  • Both cards are used in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 7970M and Radeon HD 8970M are build with GCN architecture.
  • Both graphics cards have the same core clock speed.
  • Radeon HD 7970M and Radeon HD 8970M are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7970M and Radeon HD 8970M is 4800 MHz.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 18−20 20−22
ultra / 1080p 10−12 12−14
QHD / 1440p 5−6 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 Radeon HD 7970M.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 7970M Radeon HD 8970M
Architecture GCN GCN
Code name Wimbledon XT Neptune
Type Laptop Laptop
Release date 1 May 2012 15 May 2013
Pipelines 1280 1280
Core clock speed 850 MHz 850 MHz
Boost Clock 900 MHz
Transistor count 2,800 million 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 68.00 72.00
Floating-point performance 2,176 gflops 2,304 gflops
Memory bus width 256 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 4800 MHz 4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 153.6 GB/s 153.6 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX 12 (11_1) 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.1 5.1
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan 1.2.131 1.2.131
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 254 Mh/s 273 Mh/s
Laptop size large large
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