Radeon HD 7970 vs Radeon R9 290X

Radeon HD 7970
Memory: 3072Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 22 Dec 2011
Radeon HD 7970
Radeon R9 290X
Memory: 4096Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 24 Oct 2013
Radeon R9 290X

Summary

Synthetic performance index

  • Radeon HD 7970
    100%
  • Radeon R9 290X
    150%

Relative performance

Gaming performance index

  • Radeon HD 7970
    100%
  • Radeon R9 290X
    147%

Relative performance

Reasons to consider Radeon HD 7970

40 watts lower power draw. This might be a strong point if your current power supply is not enough to handle the Radeon R9 290X .
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Based on an outdated architecture (AMD GCN), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications

Reasons to consider Radeon R9 290X

47% higher gaming performance.
This is a much newer product, it might have better long term support.
Supports Direct3D 12 Async Compute
Supports FreeSync
Supports ReLive (allows game streaming/recording with minimum performance penalty)
Supports TrueAudio
Based on an outdated architecture (AMD GCN), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications

Radeon R9 290X

HWBench recommends Radeon R9 290X

The Radeon R9 290X is the better performing card based on the game benchmark suite used (8 combinations of games and resolutions).


Specifications

Core Configuration

Radeon HD 7970Radeon R9 290X
GPU NameTahiti (Tahiti XT)vsHawaii (Hawaii XT)
Fab Process28 nmvs28 nm
Die Size352 mm²vs438 mm²
Transistors4,313 millionvs6,200 million
Shaders2048vs2816
Compute Units32vs44
Core clock925 MHzvs1000 MHz
ROPs32vs64
TMUs128vs176

Memory Configuration

Radeon HD 7970Radeon R9 290X
Memory TypeGDDR5vsGDDR5
Bus Width384 bitvs512 bit
Memory Speed1375 MHz
5500 MHz effective
vs1250 MHz
5000 MHz effective
Memory Size3072 Mbvs4096 Mb

Additional details

Radeon HD 7970Radeon R9 290X
TDP250 wattsvs290 watts
Release Date22 Dec 2011vs24 Oct 2013

Raw Performance comparison

Pixel Rate

  • Radeon HD 7970
    29.60 GP/s
  • Radeon R9 290X
    64.00 GP/s

GigaPixels - higher is better

Texel Rate

  • Radeon HD 7970
    118.00 GT/s
  • Radeon R9 290X
    176.00 GT/s

GigaTexels - higher is better

Memory bandwidth

  • Radeon HD 7970
    264.00 GB/s
  • Radeon R9 290X
    320.00 GB/s

GB/s - higher is better

Single precision performance

  • Radeon HD 7970
    3789.00 GFLOPs
  • Radeon R9 290X
    5632.00 GFLOPs

GFLOPs - higher is better

Synthetic benchmarks

3DMark 11

  • Radeon HD 7970
    10760
  • Radeon R9 290X
    16210

Points (higher is better)

Game benchmarks

Battlefield 4

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

  • Radeon HD 7970
    67
  • Radeon R9 290X
    92

FPS (higher is better)

Bioshock Infinite

DX11, Ultra Quality,DDOD, FX AA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    62
  • Radeon R9 290X
    95

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 3

DX11,Very High Quality, FXAA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    40
  • Radeon R9 290X
    55

FPS (higher is better)

Medal Of Honor Warfighter

DX11, Ultra Quality, 4xMSAA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    60
  • Radeon R9 290X
    82

FPS (higher is better)

Metro Last Light

DX11, AAA standard, 16xAF, Motion Blur normal, Tesselation normal

  • Radeon HD 7970
    43
  • Radeon R9 290X
    67

FPS (higher is better)

Bioshock Infinite

DX11, Ultra, DDOD, FXAA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    39
  • Radeon R9 290X
    62

FPS (higher is better)

Grand Theft Auto V

DX11, Max Details, 16:1 AF, 2xMSAA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    39
  • Radeon R9 290X
    58

FPS (higher is better)

Grand Theft Auto V

DX11, Max Details, 16:1 AF, 2xMSAA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    54
  • Radeon R9 290X
    83

FPS (higher is better)