Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition

Radeon HD 6870
Memory: 1024Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 21 Oct 2010
Radeon HD 6870
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
Memory: 3072Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 22 Jun 2012
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition

Summary

Synthetic performance index

  • Radeon HD 6870
    100%
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    238%

Relative performance

Gaming performance index

  • Radeon HD 6870
    100%
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    224%

Relative performance

Reasons to consider Radeon HD 6870

149 watts lower power draw. This might be a strong point if your current power supply is not enough to handle the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition .
Based on an outdated architecture (ATI TeraScale), there are no performance optimizations for current games and applications

Reasons to consider Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition

124% higher gaming performance.
This is a much newer product, it might have better long term support.
Supports Direct3D 12 Async Compute
Supports ReLive (allows game streaming/recording with minimum performance penalty)
Supports Mantle
Based on an outdated architecture (AMD GCN), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications

Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition

HWBench recommends Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition

The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is the better performing card based on the game benchmark suite used (43 combinations of games and resolutions).


Specifications

Core Configuration

Radeon HD 6870Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
GPU NameBarts (Barts XT)vsTahiti (Tahiti XT2)
Fab Process40 nmvs28 nm
Die Size255 mm²vs352 mm²
Transistors1,700 millionvs4,313 million
Shaders1120vs2048
Compute Units14vs32
Core clock900 MHzvs1000 MHz
ROPs32vs32
TMUs56vs128

Memory Configuration

Radeon HD 6870Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
Memory TypeGDDR5vsGDDR5
Bus Width256 bitvs384 bit
Memory Speed1050 MHz
4200 MHz effective
vs1500 MHz
6000 MHz effective
Memory Size1024 Mbvs3072 Mb

Additional details

Radeon HD 6870Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
TDP151 wattsvs300 watts
Release Date21 Oct 2010vs22 Jun 2012

Raw Performance comparison

Pixel Rate

  • Radeon HD 6870
    28.80 GP/s
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    32.00 GP/s

GigaPixels - higher is better

Texel Rate

  • Radeon HD 6870
    50.40 GT/s
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    128.00 GT/s

GigaTexels - higher is better

Memory bandwidth

  • Radeon HD 6870
    134.00 GB/s
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    288.00 GB/s

GB/s - higher is better

Single precision performance

  • Radeon HD 6870
    2016.00 GFLOPs
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    4096.00 GFLOPs

GFLOPs - higher is better

Synthetic benchmarks

3DMark 11

  • Radeon HD 6870
    4540
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    10830

Points (higher is better)

Game benchmarks

Alan Wake

  • Radeon HD 6870
    45
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    91.4

FPS (higher is better)

Batman: Arkham City

  • Radeon HD 6870
    48.7
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    100.6

FPS (higher is better)

Battlefield 3

  • Radeon HD 6870
    30.9
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    78.9

FPS (higher is better)

Battlefield 4

DX11, Ultra Quality,2x MSAA,16x AF, HBAO

  • Radeon HD 6870
    23
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    71

FPS (higher is better)

Bioshock Infinite

DX11, Ultra Quality,DDOD, FX AA

  • Radeon HD 6870
    29
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    68

FPS (higher is better)

Borderlands 2

  • Radeon HD 6870
    61.8
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    101.4

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis

  • Radeon HD 6870
    30.8
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    60.5

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 2

  • Radeon HD 6870
    31.3
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    70.3

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 3

DX11,Very High Quality, FXAA

  • Radeon HD 6870
    17
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    44

FPS (higher is better)

Diablo III

  • Radeon HD 6870
    85.1
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    168.1

FPS (higher is better)

Dragon Age II

  • Radeon HD 6870
    32.4
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    65.9

FPS (higher is better)

F1 2012

  • Radeon HD 6870
    52.5
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    110.2

FPS (higher is better)

Max Payne 3

  • Radeon HD 6870
    36.1
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    79.2

FPS (higher is better)

Medal Of Honor Warfighter

DX11, Ultra Quality, 4xMSAA

  • Radeon HD 6870
    25
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    65

FPS (higher is better)

Metro 2033

  • Radeon HD 6870
    17.6
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    36.2

FPS (higher is better)

Sleeping Dogs

  • Radeon HD 6870
    39.8
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    83.9

FPS (higher is better)

Sniper Elite V2

  • Radeon HD 6870
    39
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    87.7

FPS (higher is better)

STALKER: Call of Pripyat

  • Radeon HD 6870
    49.6
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    103.7

FPS (higher is better)

StarCraft II

  • Radeon HD 6870
    106.7
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    187.3

FPS (higher is better)

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

  • Radeon HD 6870
    48
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    78.5

FPS (higher is better)

Total War: Shogun 2

  • Radeon HD 6870
    28.3
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    58.8

FPS (higher is better)

Unigine Heaven 2.0

  • Radeon HD 6870
    27.1
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    76.3

FPS (higher is better)

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

  • Radeon HD 6870
    52.8
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    102.9

FPS (higher is better)

Alan Wake

  • Radeon HD 6870
    28.1
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    59.4

FPS (higher is better)

Batman: Arkham City

  • Radeon HD 6870
    30.2
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    64.1

FPS (higher is better)

Battlefield 3

  • Radeon HD 6870
    17.6
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    49.9

FPS (higher is better)

Borderlands 2

  • Radeon HD 6870
    38.4
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    71.9

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis

  • Radeon HD 6870
    18.8
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    38.3

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 2

  • Radeon HD 6870
    19
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    44.3

FPS (higher is better)

Diablo III

  • Radeon HD 6870
    59.4
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    123.9

FPS (higher is better)

Dragon Age II

  • Radeon HD 6870
    22.2
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    47.2

FPS (higher is better)

F1 2012

  • Radeon HD 6870
    36.9
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    129.9

FPS (higher is better)

Max Payne 3

  • Radeon HD 6870
    24.7
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    55.2

FPS (higher is better)

Metro 2033

  • Radeon HD 6870
    11.4
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    24.3

FPS (higher is better)

Sleeping Dogs

  • Radeon HD 6870
    23.7
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    53.8

FPS (higher is better)

Sniper Elite V2

  • Radeon HD 6870
    24
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    58.9

FPS (higher is better)

STALKER: Call of Pripyat

  • Radeon HD 6870
    29.7
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    67.5

FPS (higher is better)

StarCraft II

  • Radeon HD 6870
    80.7
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    152

FPS (higher is better)

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

  • Radeon HD 6870
    30.4
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    73.2

FPS (higher is better)

Total War: Shogun 2

  • Radeon HD 6870
    17
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    35.7

FPS (higher is better)

Unigine Heaven 2.0

  • Radeon HD 6870
    18
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    53.8

FPS (higher is better)

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

  • Radeon HD 6870
    37.1
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    73.6

FPS (higher is better)

Bioshock Infinite

DX11, Ultra, DDOD, FXAA

  • Radeon HD 6870
    18
  • Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
    45

FPS (higher is better)