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AMD Radeon HD 7970

Graphics Processor
Tahiti
Cores
2048
TMUs
128
ROPs
32
Memory Size
3 GB
Memory Type
GDDR5
Bus Width
384 bit
GPU Chip
GPU
I/O
I/O
Top
Top
Cooler
Cooler
Rear
Rear
PCB Front
PCB Front
PCB Back
PCB Back
The Radeon HD 7970 was a high-end graphics card by AMD, launched on January 9th, 2012. Built on the 28 nm process, and based on the Tahiti graphics processor, in its Tahiti XT variant, the card supports DirectX 12. Even though it supports DirectX 12, the feature level is only 11_1, which can be problematic with newer DirectX 12 titles. The Tahiti graphics processor is a large chip with a die area of 352 mm² and 4,313 million transistors. It features 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. AMD has paired 3,072 MB GDDR5 memory with the Radeon HD 7970, which are connected using a 384-bit memory interface. The GPU is operating at a frequency of 925 MHz, memory is running at 1375 MHz (5.5 Gbps effective).
Being a dual-slot card, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 draws power from 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin power connector, with power draw rated at 250 W maximum. Display outputs include: 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, 2x mini-DisplayPort 1.2. Radeon HD 7970 is connected to the rest of the system using a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 interface. The card's dimensions are 275 mm x 111 mm x 38 mm, and it features a dual-slot cooling solution. Its price at launch was 549 US Dollars.

Graphics Processor

GPU Name
Tahiti
GPU Variant
Tahiti XT
(215-0821060)
Architecture
GCN 1.0
Foundry
TSMC
Process Size
28 nm
Transistors
4,313 million
Density
12.3M / mm²
Die Size
352 mm²

Graphics Card

Release Date
Jan 9th, 2012
Announced
Dec 22nd, 2011
Generation
Southern Islands
(HD 7900)
Predecessor
Northern Islands
Successor
Sea Islands
Production
End-of-life
Launch Price
549 USD
Bus Interface
PCIe 3.0 x16
Reviews
191 in our database

Relative Performance

GeForce RTX 5090
1537%
GeForce RTX 4090
1173%
GeForce RTX 5080
1013%
GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER
905%
GeForce RTX 4080
897%
Radeon RX 7900 XTX
896%
GeForce RTX 5070 Ti
884%
Radeon RX 9070 XT
844%
Radeon RX 7900 XT
772%
GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
758%
GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER
757%
Radeon RX 9070
756%
GeForce RTX 4070 Ti
693%
GeForce RTX 5070
686%
GeForce RTX 3090
676%
GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
667%
GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER
646%
Radeon RX 7900 GRE
636%
Radeon RX 6950 XT
625%
GeForce RTX 4070
617%
Radeon RX 6900 XT
611%
GeForce RTX 3080
601%
Radeon RX 7800 XT
599%
Radeon RX 6800 XT
578%
GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB
536%
GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB
533%
Radeon RX 7700 XT
525%
Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB
509%
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti
508%
Radeon RX 6800
491%
Radeon RX 6750 XT
488%
Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB
481%
GeForce RTX 3070
476%
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
471%
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB
469%
GeForce RTX 5060
462%
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
416%
Radeon RX 6700 XT
409%
GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER
380%
Radeon RX 7600 XT
377%
GeForce RTX 4060
375%
Arc B580
375%
GeForce RTX 5050
365%
GeForce RTX 2080
362%
Radeon RX 6650 XT
354%
Radeon RX 7600
354%
GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER
337%
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
333%
Arc A770
333%
GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB
321%
Radeon RX 6600 XT
316%
Radeon VII
315%
Arc A750
309%
Radeon RX 5700 XT
302%
GeForce RTX 2070
298%
Radeon RX 6600
284%
Arc A580
276%
GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER
276%
Radeon RX Vega 64
264%
GeForce RTX 2060
256%
Radeon RX 5700
254%
GeForce GTX 1080
250%
GeForce GTX 1070 Ti
245%
Radeon RX 5600 XT
243%
Radeon RX Vega 56
230%
GeForce GTX 1070
222%
GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER
210%
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
210%
GeForce GTX 980 Ti
199%
GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB
198%
Radeon R9 FURY X
196%
GeForce GTX 1660
194%
Radeon RX 590
183%
Radeon R9 FURY
178%
GeForce GTX 980
176%
GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER
174%
Radeon RX 6500 XT
172%
Radeon RX 5500 XT
171%
Radeon RX 580
169%
GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB
165%
Radeon R9 390X
163%
GeForce GTX 690
161%
Radeon RX 480
159%
Radeon HD 7990
158%
GeForce GTX 780 Ti
156%
GeForce GTX 970
152%
Radeon R9 290X
151%
Radeon R9 390
149%
Radeon RX 570
147%
Radeon R9 290
139%
Radeon RX 470
137%
GeForce GTX 1650
129%
Radeon RX 6400
127%
Arc A380
125%
GeForce GTX 780
125%
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
113%
GeForce GTX 590
113%
Radeon R9 280X
111%
Radeon HD 6990
109%
GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
103%
GeForce GTX 680
101%
Radeon R9 380
100%
Radeon HD 7970
100%
GeForce GTX 770
100%
Radeon R9 285
99%
GeForce GTX 960
96%
GeForce GTX 670
94%
Radeon HD 5970
85%
GeForce GTX 1630
84%
Radeon HD 7950
83%
GeForce GTX 1050
83%
GeForce GTX 760
82%
GeForce GTX 580
82%
GeForce GTX 660 Ti
82%
Radeon R9 270X
81%
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
79%
GeForce GTX 950
78%
Radeon RX 560
74%
GeForce GTX 570
72%
GeForce GTX 660
72%
Radeon RX 460
72%
Radeon R7 370
72%
Radeon HD 6970
69%
GeForce GTX 480
66%
Radeon HD 7850
65%
GeForce GTX 295
64%
Radeon HD 6950
62%
GeForce GTX 750 Ti
61%
Radeon HD 4870 X2
60%
GeForce GTX 560 Ti
60%
Radeon HD 5870
58%
Radeon HD 6870
55%
GeForce GTX 470
53%
GeForce GTX 650 Ti
50%
Radeon HD 5850
49%
GeForce GTX 285
46%
Radeon HD 6850
45%
GeForce GTX 280
42%
Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition
42%
GeForce GTX 275
42%
GeForce GT 1030
42%
GeForce GTX 460
41%
Radeon HD 4890
40%
Radeon HD 6790
39%
Radeon HD 5830
37%
GeForce GTX 650
35%
GeForce GTX 550 Ti
35%
Radeon HD 4870
34%
GeForce GTX 260
34%
Radeon HD 5770
33%
Radeon HD 7750
33%
Radeon HD 5750
29%
GeForce GTS 450
28%
GeForce GTS 250
27%
Radeon HD 4850
26%
Radeon HD 4770
25%
Radeon HD 4830
24%
Radeon HD 6670
23%
GeForce 9800 GT
22%
GeForce GT 640
21%
Radeon HD 5670
20%
GeForce 9600 GT
19%
GeForce GT 240
16%
GeForce GT 440
16%
Radeon HD 4670
15%
Radeon HD 5570
14%
GeForce GT 430
14%
GeForce GT 220
10%
GeForce GT 520
8%
Radeon HD 6450
8%
Radeon HD 5450
7%
Radeon HD 4550
5%
GeForce 9400 GT
4%
GeForce 210
3%
Based on TPU review data: "Performance Summary" at 1920x1080, 4K for RTX 3080 and faster.

Clock Speeds

GPU Clock
925 MHz
Memory Clock
1375 MHz
5.5 Gbps effective

Memory

Memory Size
3 GB
Memory Type
GDDR5
Memory Bus
384 bit
Bandwidth
264.0 GB/s

Render Config

Shading Units
2048
TMUs
128
ROPs
32
Compute Units
32
L1 Cache
16 KB (per CU)
L2 Cache
768 KB

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate
29.60 GPixel/s
Texture Rate
118.4 GTexel/s
FP32 (float)
3.789 TFLOPS
FP64 (double)
947.2 GFLOPS (1:4)

Board Design

Slot Width
Dual-slot
Length
275 mm
10.8 inches
Width
111 mm
4.4 inches
Height
38 mm
1.5 inches
TDP
250 W
Suggested PSU
600 W
Outputs
1x DVI
1x HDMI 1.4a
2x mini-DisplayPort 1.2
Power Connectors
1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
Board Number
109-C38637-00

Graphics Features

DirectX
12 (11_1)
OpenGL
4.6
OpenCL
2.1 (1.2)
Vulkan
1.2.170
Shader Model
6.5 (5.1)

Tahiti GPU Notes

Generation: Southern Islands
Desktop Variant: New Zealand / Malta
Graphics/Compute: GFX6 (gfx600)
Display Core Engine: 6.0
Unified Video Decoder: 3.2
Video Compression Engine: 1.0
CLRX: GCN 1.0

Exact Transistor Count: 4,312,711,873

Latest Drivers:
Windows XP / 8:
Catalyst Software Suite 14.4

Windows Vista :
Catalyst Software Suite 13.12

Windows 7:
32-bit: Radeon Software: Adrenalin Edition 18.9.3
64-bit: AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.6.1

Windows 8.1:
32-bit: Radeon Software: Crimson ReLive Edition 16.12.2 / 17.1.2
64-bit: Radeon Software: Crimson ReLive Edition 17.4.4 / 17.7.1

Windows 10:
32-bit: Radeon Software: Adrenalin Edition 18.9.3
64-bit: AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.6.1

Retail boards based on this design (48)

Name GPU Clock Memory Clock Other Changes
925 MHz 1375 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz 279 mm/11 inches, Triple-slot, 2x DVI 4x DisplayPort
1000 MHz 1400 MHz 279 mm/11 inches, Triple-slot, 2x DVI 4x DisplayPort
925 MHz 1375 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz
975 MHz 1375 MHz 268 mm/10.6 inches, 2x DVI 1x HDMI 2x mini-DisplayPort
925 MHz 1375 MHz 268 mm/10.6 inches, 2x DVI 1x HDMI 2x mini-DisplayPort
925 MHz 1375 MHz
1025 MHz 1450 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz 285 mm/11.2 inches
1080 MHz 1375 MHz 303 mm/11.9 inches
1000 MHz 1375 MHz 285 mm/11.2 inches
925 MHz 1375 MHz 293 mm/11.5 inches
925 MHz 1375 MHz 311 mm/12.2 inches
1050 MHz 1400 MHz 311 mm/12.2 inches
1120 MHz 1400 MHz 311 mm/12.2 inches
925 MHz 1375 MHz
1070 MHz 1400 MHz 305 mm/12 inches, 2x DVI 4x mini-DisplayPort
1010 MHz 1375 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz 305 mm/12 inches, 2x DVI 4x mini-DisplayPort
925 MHz 1375 MHz 261 mm/10.3 inches
1000 MHz 1375 MHz 261 mm/10.3 inches
925 MHz 1375 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz 285 mm/11.2 inches
925 MHz 1375 MHz 265 mm/10.4 inches, 2x DVI 1x HDMI 2x mini-DisplayPort
1050 MHz 1425 MHz 285 mm/11.2 inches, Single-slot
1100 MHz 1425 MHz 285 mm/11.2 inches, 2x DVI 1x HDMI 2x mini-DisplayPort
925 MHz 1375 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz 6 GB
1000 MHz 1450 MHz 6 GB
925 MHz 1375 MHz 280 mm/11 inches, 2x DVI 1x HDMI 1x DisplayPort
925 MHz 1375 MHz 280 mm/11 inches
950 MHz 1425 MHz 280 mm/11 inches
950 MHz 1450 MHz 280 mm/11 inches, 2x DVI 1x HDMI 1x DisplayPort
925 MHz 1375 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz
1050 MHz 1425 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz 236 mm/9.3 inches, 2x DVI 1x HDMI 2x mini-DisplayPort
925 MHz 1375 MHz
1000 MHz 1425 MHz 2x DVI 1x HDMI 2x mini-DisplayPort
925 MHz 1375 MHz
1000 MHz 1425 MHz
925 MHz 1375 MHz 2x DVI 1x HDMI 2x DisplayPort
925 MHz 1375 MHz
Jul 30th, 2025 04:53 CDT change timezone

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