Radeon HD 8950M vs GeForce GTX 970M
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 356 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Power efficiency | 12.54 | no data |
| Architecture | Maxwell 2.0 (2014−2019) | GCN 2.0 (2013−2017) |
| GPU code name | GM204 | Saturn |
| Market segment | Laptop | Laptop |
| Release date | 7 October 2014 (10 years ago) | 14 May 2013 (11 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $2,560.89 | no data |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.
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 cores | 1280 | 768 |
| Core clock speed | 924 MHz | 1075 MHz |
| Boost clock speed | 1038 MHz | no data |
| Number of transistors | 5,200 million | 2,080 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | unknown | 100 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 83.04 | 51.60 |
| Floating-point processing power | 2.657 TFLOPS | 1.651 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 48 | 16 |
| TMUs | 80 | 48 |
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).
| Laptop size | large | no data |
| Bus support | PCI Express 3.0 | no data |
| Interface | MXM-B (3.0) | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Supplementary power connectors | None | no data |
| 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 type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 2 GB |
| Memory bus width | 192 Bit | 128 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 2500 MHz | 1375 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 120 GB/s | 88 GB/s |
| Shared memory | - | - |
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 Connectors | No outputs | No outputs |
| VGA аnalog display support | + | no data |
| DisplayPort Multimode (DP++) support | + | no data |
| HDMI | + | - |
| G-SYNC support | + | - |
Supported technologies
Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.
| GameStream | + | - |
| GeForce ShadowPlay | + | - |
| GPU Boost | 2.0 | no data |
| GameWorks | + | - |
| H.264, VC1, MPEG2 1080p video decoder | + | - |
| Optimus | + | - |
| BatteryBoost | + | - |
| Ansel | + | - |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 12 (12_1) | 12 (12_0) |
| Shader Model | 6.4 | 6.3 |
| OpenGL | 4.5 | 4.6 |
| OpenCL | 1.1 | 2.0 |
| Vulkan | 1.1.126 | 1.2.131 |
| CUDA | + | - |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 7 October 2014 | 14 May 2013 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 2 GB |
GTX 970M has an age advantage of 1 year, and a 50% higher maximum VRAM amount.
We couldn't decide between GeForce GTX 970M and Radeon HD 8950M. 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.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
