HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) vs Radeon HD 7970
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 378 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | 2.38 | no data |
| Power efficiency | 3.78 | no data |
| Architecture | GCN 1.0 (2011−2020) | Gen. 6 Sandy Bridge (2011) |
| GPU code name | Tahiti | Sandy Bridge |
| Market segment | Desktop | Laptop |
| Design | reference | no data |
| Release date | 22 December 2011 (12 years ago) | 1 May 2011 (13 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $549 | 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 | 2048 | 6 |
| Core clock speed | no data | 350 MHz |
| Boost clock speed | 925 MHz | 1100 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 4,313 million | no data |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 32 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 300 Watt | no data |
| Texture fill rate | 118.4 | no data |
| Floating-point processing power | 3.789 TFLOPS | no data |
| ROPs | 32 | no data |
| TMUs | 128 | no data |
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 support | PCIe 2.1 x16 | no data |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | no data |
| Length | 274 mm | no data |
| Width | 2-slot | no data |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin | no data |
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 | no data |
| Maximum RAM amount | 6 GB | no data |
| Memory bus width | 384 Bit | 64/128 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 1375 MHz | no data |
| Memory bandwidth | 264 GB/s | no data |
| 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 | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort | no data |
| Eyefinity | + | - |
| HDMI | + | - |
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.
| DirectX | DirectX® 11 | 10.1 |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | no data |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | no data |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | no data |
Synthetic benchmark performance
Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.
3DMark Vantage Performance
3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.
3DMark Cloud Gate GPU
Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 22 December 2011 | 1 May 2011 |
| Chip lithography | 28 nm | 32 nm |
HD 7970 has an age advantage of 7 months, and a 14.3% more advanced lithography process.
We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 7970 and HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge). We've got no test results to judge.
Be aware that Radeon HD 7970 is a desktop card while HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) is a notebook one.
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.
