Radeon HD 7970 vs Radeon R7 260X

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 7970 and Radeon R7 260X, 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 7970 stacks up against Radeon R7 260X, check out specs charts below.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 7970 Radeon R7 260X
Power consumption (TDP) 300 Watt 115 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin 1 x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 3 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 7970 has 160% more power consumption, than Radeon R7 260X.
  • Both video cards are using PCIe 3.0 x16 interface connection to a motherboard.
  • Radeon R7 260X has 1 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 7970.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 7970 is build with GCN architecture, and Radeon R7 260X - with GCN 2.0.
  • Radeon HD 7970 and Radeon R7 260X are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Radeon HD 7970 is 104 mm longer, than Radeon R7 260X.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 35−40 16−18
ultra / 1080p 21−24 9−10
QHD / 1440p 16−18 4−5
4K / 2160p 10−11
low / 720p 60−65 30−35
medium / 1080p 40−45 20−22
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7970 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 125% more, than Radeon R7 260X.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 7970 Radeon R7 260X
Architecture GCN GCN 2.0
Code name Tahiti XT Bonaire
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 22 December 2011 8 October 2013
Pipelines 2048 896
Boost Clock 925 MHz 1000 MHz
Transistor count 4,313 million 2,080 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 118.4 61.60
Floating-point performance 3,789 gflops 1,971 gflops
Length 274 mm 170 mm
Memory bus width 384 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 1375 MHz
Memory bandwidth 264 GB/s 104 GB/s
Shared memory -
Shader Model 5.1 6.3
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 2.0
FreeSync + +
Bus support PCIe 2.1 x16 PCIe 3.0
HDMI + +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 485 Mh/s 225 Mh/s
Eyefinity + +
Design reference reference
CrossFire +
DDMA audio +
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 20.71 Mh/s 5.16 Mh/s
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