Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

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Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking691not rated
Place by popularity73not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.69no data
Power efficiency2.40no data
ArchitectureFermi 2.0 (2010−2014)GCN 1.0 (2011−2020)
GPU code nameGF116Tahiti
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Designno datareference
Release date15 March 2011 (13 years ago)22 June 2012 (12 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$149 $499

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores1922048
Core clock speed900 MHzno data
Boost clock speedno data1050 MHz
Number of transistors1,170 million4,313 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)116 Watt250 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature100 °Cno data
Texture fill rate28.80134.4
Floating-point processing power0.6912 TFLOPS4.301 TFLOPS
ROPs2432
TMUs32128

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Bus support16x PCI-E 2.0PCIe 2.1 x16
InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16PCIe 3.0 x16
Length210 mm274 mm
Height4.376" (11.1 cm)no data
Width2-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
SLI options+-

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount2 GB3 GB
Memory bus width192 Bit384 Bit
Memory clock speed4.1 GB/s1500 MHz
Memory bandwidth98.4 GB/s288 GB/s

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display ConnectorsTwo Dual Link DVI-IMini HDMI1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
Multi monitor support+no data
Eyefinity-+
HDMI++
Maximum VGA resolution2048x1536no data
Audio input for HDMIInternalno data

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

CrossFire-+
FreeSync-+

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX12 (11_0)DirectX® 11
Shader Model5.15.1
OpenGL4.24.6
OpenCL1.11.2
VulkanN/A-
CUDA+-

Pros & cons summary


Recency 15 March 2011 22 June 2012
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 3 GB
Chip lithography 40 nm 28 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 116 Watt 250 Watt

GTX 550 Ti has 115.5% lower power consumption.

HD 7970 GHz Edition, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 1 year, a 50% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between GeForce GTX 550 Ti and Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. We've got no test results to judge.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti
GeForce GTX 550 Ti
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition

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Community ratings

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4.9 59424 votes

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4 49 votes

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Questions & comments

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