AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT vs AMD Radeon HD 7970

VS
Performance
Radeon RX 7700 XT638% better
57,34055% of 104,598
Radeon HD 7970
7,7707% of 104,598

The Radeon RX 7700 XT has 638% better performance than the Radeon HD 7970 for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

Performance per dollar
Radeon RX 7700 XT802% better
127.7179% of 161.45
Radeon HD 7970
14.159% of 161.45

The Radeon RX 7700 XT has 802% better value for the money than the Radeon HD 7970 for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

Shop Radeon RX 7700 XT
Shop Radeon HD 7970
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Summary

#

About the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT GPU

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is a desktop graphics card that launched in Q3 2023 with a MSRP of $449. It is built on the RDNA 3.0 GPU microarchitecture (codename Navi 32) and is manufactured on a 5 nm process.

Memory

The RX 7700 XT has 12 GB of GDDR6 memory, with a 2,250 MHz memory clock and a 192 bit interface. This gives it a memory bandwidth of 432 Gb/s, which affects how fast it can transfer data to and from memory. GPU memory stores temporary data that helps the GPU with complex math and graphics operations. More memory is generally better, as not having enough can cause performance bottlenecks.

Cores and Clock Speeds

The RX 7700 XT includes 3,456 stream processors (SPs), the processing units for handling parallel computing tasks. The GPU operates at a core clock speed of 1,435 MHz and can dynamically boost its clock speed up to 2,544 MHz. It usually operates at 2,171 MHz during typical gaming workloads. Complementing the processing units are 216 texture mapping units (TMUs) for efficient texture filtering and 96 render output units (ROPs) for pixel processing. Additionally, the GPU features 108 AI accelerators optimized for AI workloads and 54 ray accelerators dedicated to real-time ray tracing calculations.

Compatibility & Power Consumption

The RX 7700 XT occupies 2 PCIe expansion slots. It supports HDMI 2.1a, DisplayPort 2.1, USB Type-C display connections. AMD recommends a power supply of at least 550 W to handle the GPU's thermal design power (TDP) of 245 W.

Benchmark Performance & Value

The RX 7700 XT has the 19th best 3DMark 11 Performance GPU score among the 543 benchmarked GPUs in our database. It achieves 54.82% of the performance of the best benchmarked GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. Its 57,340 score and $449 launch price (MSRP) gives it a performance per dollar of 127.71. This is the 5th best in value for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

About the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GPU

The AMD Radeon HD 7970 is an end-of-life desktop graphics card that released in Q1 2012 with a MSRP of $549. It is built on the GCN 1.0 GPU microarchitecture (codename Tahiti) and is manufactured on a 28 nm process.

Memory

The HD 7970 has 3 GB of GDDR5 memory, with a 1,375 MHz memory clock and a 384 bit interface. This gives it a memory bandwidth of 264 Gb/s, which affects how fast it can transfer data to and from memory. GPU memory stores temporary data that helps the GPU with complex math and graphics operations. More memory is generally better, as not having enough can cause performance bottlenecks.

Cores and Clock Speeds

The HD 7970 includes 2,048 stream processors (SPs), the processing units for handling parallel computing tasks. The GPU operates at a core clock speed of 925 MHz. Complementing the processing units are 128 texture mapping units (TMUs) for efficient texture filtering and 32 render output units (ROPs) for pixel processing.

Compatibility & Power Consumption

The HD 7970 occupies 2 PCIe expansion slots. It supports DVI, HDMI 1.4a, mini-DisplayPort 1.2 display connections. AMD recommends a power supply of at least 600 W to handle the GPU's thermal design power (TDP) of 250 W.

Benchmark Performance & Value

The HD 7970 has the 211th best 3DMark 11 Performance GPU score among the 543 benchmarked GPUs in our database. It achieves 7.43% of the performance of the best benchmarked GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. Its 7,770 score and $549 launch price (MSRP) gives it a performance per dollar of 14.15. This is the 92nd best in value for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

General Info

General overview of the GPU, including details like its manufacturer, release date, launch price, and current production status.

InfoRadeon RX 7700 XTRadeon HD 7970
ManufacturerAMDAMD
ArchitectureRDNA 3.0GCN 1.0
Market SegmentDesktopDesktop
Release DateQ3 2023Q1 2012
Launch Price (MSRP)$449$549
Production StatusActiveEnd-of-life
ShopCheck PriceCheck Price

Gaming Performance

#

Select a game to compare FPS metrics

Display FPS for Sons of the Forest
Sons of the Forest
Display FPS for Ready or Not
Ready or Not
Display FPS for The Finals
The Finals
Display FPS for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Display FPS for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023)
Display FPS for EA Sports WRC
EA Sports WRC
Display FPS for Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2

FPS Benchmarks

This table showcases the average frame rate (FPS) achieved both GPUs in at various resolutions. Frame rate is a crucial indicator of how smoothly the GPU can run the game. A higher FPS generally translates to a smoother gameplay experience.

  • Frames Per Second
FPS data for Sons of the Forest
Sons of the Forest
Radeon RX 7700 XTRadeon HD 7970
Low - 1080p
119 FPS
--
Medium - 1080p
116 FPS
--
High - 1080p
112 FPS
--
Ultra - 1080p
112 FPS
--
QHD - 1440p
99 FPS
--
4K UHD - 2160p
59 FPS
--
FPS Source: Notebookcheck

Compare Frames Per Second (FPS)

The average frame rate (FPS) in can be compared to similar GPUs to assess relative performance. Generally, higher FPS results in a smoother gameplay experience.

Choose Baseline GPU:Radeon RX 7700 XT orRadeon HD 7970

Compare Cost Per Frame

The average cost per frame in can be compared to similar GPUs to assess relative value. Generally, a lower cost per frame implies better value for your money.

Choose Baseline GPU:Radeon RX 7700 XT orRadeon HD 7970

Benchmark Performance

#
Performance
Radeon RX 7700 XT638% better
57,34055% of 104,598
Radeon HD 7970
7,7707% of 104,598

The Radeon RX 7700 XT has 638% better performance than the Radeon HD 7970 for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

The Radeon RX 7700 XT is ranked 19th with a score of 57,340, and the Radeon HD 7970 is ranked 211th with a score of 7,770.

Performance per dollar
Radeon RX 7700 XT802% better
127.7179% of 161.45
Radeon HD 7970
14.159% of 161.45

The Radeon RX 7700 XT has 802% better value for the money than the Radeon HD 7970 for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

The Radeon RX 7700 XT is ranked 5th with a performance per dollar of 127.71, and the Radeon HD 7970 is ranked 92nd with a performance per dollar of 14.15.

Relative Performance

The average score in the benchmark test can be compared to similar GPUs to assess relative performance. Generally, powerful GPUs tend to have higher scores.

Choose Baseline GPU:Radeon RX 7700 XT or

Relative Value For Money

The average performance per dollar in the benchmark test can be compared to similar GPUs to assess relative value. A higher score implies a better value for your money.

Choose Baseline GPU:Radeon RX 7700 XT or
GPUPerformance Per Dollar
Arc A750129.02+1%
GeForce RTX 4060127.73+0%
Radeon RX 7700 XT127.71
Arc A770125.54-2%
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (8 GB)119.81-6%
Radeon HD 7870 (GHz Edition)17.75-86%
Radeon HD 687017.65-86%
Radeon HD 797014.15-89%
GeForce GTX 59013.11-90%
GeForce GTX 47012.44-90%

Benchmark Scores

This table showcases the average performance scores achieved by both GPUs across industry-standard benchmark tests. These scores provide a valuable insight into overall performance. Powerful GPUs tend to have higher scores.

  • Popular
BenchmarkRadeon RX 7700 XTRadeon HD 7970
3DMark Time Spy Graphics
16,777
--
3DMark Time Spy Score
16,454
--
3DMark Cloud Gate Graphics
201,871
(+360.95%)
43,795
3DMark Fire Strike Standard Graphics
42,801
(+523.74%)
6,862
3DMark Night Raid Graphics
176,451
--
3DMark 11 Performance Score
45,241
(+517.79%)
7,323
PassMark G3D Mark
22,193
(+322.88%)
5,248
PassMark G2D Mark
1,103
(+49.46%)
738
Unigine Heaven 3.0 DirectX 11
--
77.8
Benchmarks Source: Notebookcheck

Technical Specs

#

Graphics Processor

General information about the graphics processing unit like their architecture, manufacturing process size, and transistor count. Newer GPU architectures generally bring efficiency improvements and may introduce technologies that enhance graphical capabilities.

SpecRadeon RX 7700 XTRadeon HD 7970
CodenameNavi 32Tahiti
ArchitectureRDNA 3.0GCN 1.0
Process Size5 nm28 nm
Transistors28,100 million4,313 million

Memory Details

Memory specifications like their capacity, bandwidth, and clock speeds. GPU memory stores graphics data like frames, textures, and shadows which helps display rendered images. These specs are crucial for graphics-intense applications like gaming and 3D modeling.

SpecRadeon RX 7700 XTRadeon HD 7970
Memory Size12 GB3 GB
Memory TypeGDDR6GDDR5
Memory Bandwidth432 Gb/s264 Gb/s
Memory Clock2,250 MHz1,375 MHz
Memory Interface192 bit384 bit
L1 Cache128 KB16 KB
L2 Cache2 MB768 KB

Board Compatibility

Compatibility information like their slot size, bus interface, power consumption, and display support. These specs are useful for verifying compatibility with your motherboard, power supply, and monitor.

SpecRadeon RX 7700 XTRadeon HD 7970
Slots2 slots2 slots
Bus InterfacePCIe 4.0 x16PCIe 3.0 x16
Thermal Design Power (TDP)245 W250 W
Suggested PSU550 W600 W
Power Connectors2x 8-pin1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
OutputsHDMI 2.1a, DisplayPort 2.1, USB Type-CDVI, HDMI 1.4a, mini-DisplayPort 1.2

Cores & Clock Speeds

Processing power information like its cores and clock speed. These specs impact how fast they can process graphics. Each type of core or component serves a specific computational purpose.

SpecRadeon RX 7700 XTRadeon HD 7970
Stream Processors (SP)3,4562,048
Compute Units (CU)5432
Texture Mapping Units (TMU)216128
Render Output Units (ROP)9632
AI Accelerators108--
Ray Accelerators54--
Core Clock Speed1,435 MHz925 MHz
Core Clock Speed (Boost)2,544 MHz--
Core Clock Speed (Game)2,171 MHz--

Theoretical Performance

Theoretical performance numbers derived from the raw specifications of the different components like core count and clock speeds. While these provide a glimpse into peak processing power, they do not represent real-world performance.

SpecRadeon RX 7700 XTRadeon HD 7970
Pixel Fill Rate244.2 GPixel/s29.6 GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate549.5 GTexel/s118.4 GTexel/s
FP32 Performance35.17 TFLOPS3.79 TFLOPS
FP64 Performance1,099 GFLOPS947.2 GFLOPS

API Support

Graphics API versions supported by these graphics cards. APIs evolve over time, introducing new features and functionalities. Older GPUs may not support recent versions.

SpecRadeon RX 7700 XTRadeon HD 7970
DirectX12 Ultimate (12_2)12 (11_1)
OpenCL2.22.1 (1.2)
OpenGL4.64.6
Shader Model6.86.5 (5.1)

Check out these comparisons for similar GPUs:

Looking for alternatives? Check out these similar GPUs:

* Performance rating, performance per dollar, and rankings are based on the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark and MSRP.