GeForce GT 230M vs Radeon HD 7970M

Aggregate performance score

We've compared Radeon HD 7970M and GeForce GT 230M, covering specs and all relevant benchmarks.

HD 7970M
2012
2 GB GDDR5, 100 Watt
9.26
+1584%

HD 7970M outperforms GT 230M by a whopping 1584% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking4751217
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency6.351.64
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2011−2020)Tesla 2.0 (2007−2013)
GPU code nameWimbledonGT216
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date24 April 2012 (12 years ago)15 June 2009 (15 years ago)

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 cores128048
Core clock speed850 MHz500 MHz
Number of transistors2,800 million486 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)100 Watt23 Watt
Texture fill rate68.008.000
Floating-point processing power2.176 TFLOPS0.1056 TFLOPS
Gigaflopsno data158
ROPs328
TMUs8016

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 sizelargemedium sized
Bus supportno dataPCI-E 2.0
InterfaceMXM-B (3.0)PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectorsNoneno 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 typeGDDR5GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount2 GBUp to 1 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1200 MHzUp to 600 (DDR2), Up to 800 (GDDR3), Up to 1066 (GDDR3) MHz
Memory bandwidth153.6 GB/s16 (DDR2), 25 (DDR3)
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 ConnectorsNo outputsDual Link DVIVGADisplayPortHDMISingle Link DVI
HDMI-+
Maximum VGA resolutionno data2048x1536
Audio input for HDMIno dataHDA

Supported technologies

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

Power managementno data8.0

API compatibility

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

DirectX12 (11_1)11.1 (10_1)
Shader Model5.14.1
OpenGL4.62.1
OpenCL1.21.1
Vulkan1.2.131N/A
CUDA-+

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

HD 7970M 9.26
+1584%
GT 230M 0.55

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

HD 7970M 3568
+1583%
GT 230M 212

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.

HD 7970M 21938
+828%
GT 230M 2363

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

900p84
+2000%
4−5
−2000%
Full HD60
+1900%
3−4
−1900%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 14−16
+367%
3−4
−367%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 21−24
+450%
4−5
−450%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 12−14 0−1
Battlefield 5 27−30
+2700%
1−2
−2700%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 18−20
+533%
3−4
−533%
Cyberpunk 2077 14−16
+367%
3−4
−367%
Far Cry 5 21−24
+2000%
1−2
−2000%
Far Cry New Dawn 24−27
+2500%
1−2
−2500%
Forza Horizon 4 60−65
+1933%
3−4
−1933%
Hitman 3 16−18
+240%
5−6
−240%
Horizon Zero Dawn 50−55
+364%
10−12
−364%
Metro Exodus 27−30
+2700%
1−2
−2700%
Red Dead Redemption 2 24−27
+2400%
1−2
−2400%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 30−33
+400%
6−7
−400%
Watch Dogs: Legion 60−65
+100%
30−33
−100%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 21−24
+450%
4−5
−450%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 12−14 0−1
Battlefield 5 27−30
+2700%
1−2
−2700%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 18−20
+533%
3−4
−533%
Cyberpunk 2077 14−16
+367%
3−4
−367%
Far Cry 5 21−24
+2000%
1−2
−2000%
Far Cry New Dawn 24−27
+2500%
1−2
−2500%
Forza Horizon 4 60−65
+1933%
3−4
−1933%
Hitman 3 16−18
+240%
5−6
−240%
Horizon Zero Dawn 50−55
+364%
10−12
−364%
Metro Exodus 27−30
+2700%
1−2
−2700%
Red Dead Redemption 2 24−27
+2400%
1−2
−2400%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 30−33
+400%
6−7
−400%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 24−27
+150%
10−11
−150%
Watch Dogs: Legion 60−65
+100%
30−33
−100%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 21−24
+450%
4−5
−450%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 12−14 0−1
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 18−20
+533%
3−4
−533%
Cyberpunk 2077 14−16
+367%
3−4
−367%
Far Cry 5 21−24
+2000%
1−2
−2000%
Forza Horizon 4 60−65
+1933%
3−4
−1933%
Hitman 3 16−18
+240%
5−6
−240%
Horizon Zero Dawn 50−55
+364%
10−12
−364%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 30−33
+400%
6−7
−400%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 24−27
+150%
10−11
−150%
Watch Dogs: Legion 60−65
+100%
30−33
−100%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 24−27
+2400%
1−2
−2400%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5 18−20
+1700%
1−2
−1700%
Far Cry New Dawn 14−16
+1300%
1−2
−1300%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 9−10 0−1
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 5−6 0−1
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 9−10 0−1
Cyberpunk 2077 4−5
+300%
1−2
−300%
Far Cry 5 10−12
+1000%
1−2
−1000%
Forza Horizon 4 35−40
+1850%
2−3
−1850%
Hitman 3 12−14
+100%
6−7
−100%
Horizon Zero Dawn 18−20
+533%
3−4
−533%
Metro Exodus 12−14 0−1
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 10−11 0−1
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 8−9 0−1
Watch Dogs: Legion 55−60
+5700%
1−2
−5700%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 14−16
+400%
3−4
−400%

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5 8−9 0−1
Far Cry New Dawn 6−7 0−1
Hitman 3 5−6 0−1
Horizon Zero Dawn 35−40
+1750%
2−3
−1750%
Metro Exodus 7−8 0−1
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 6−7 0−1

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 5−6
+400%
1−2
−400%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 4−5 0−1
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4−5 0−1
Cyberpunk 2077 1−2 0−1
Far Cry 5 5−6 0−1
Forza Horizon 4 10−12 0−1
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 5−6 0−1
Watch Dogs: Legion 3−4 0−1

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 9−10
+350%
2−3
−350%

This is how HD 7970M and GT 230M compete in popular games:

  • HD 7970M is 2000% faster in 900p
  • HD 7970M is 1900% faster in 1080p

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

  • in Watch Dogs: Legion, with 1440p resolution and the Ultra Preset, the HD 7970M is 5700% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

  • Without exception, HD 7970M surpassed GT 230M in all 35 of our tests.

Pros & cons summary


Performance score 9.26 0.55
Recency 24 April 2012 15 June 2009
Chip lithography 28 nm 40 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 100 Watt 23 Watt

HD 7970M has a 1583.6% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 2 years, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

GT 230M, on the other hand, has 334.8% lower power consumption.

The Radeon HD 7970M is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce GT 230M in performance tests.


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

Vote for your favorite

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AMD Radeon HD 7970M
Radeon HD 7970M
NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M
GeForce GT 230M

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


4.2 43 votes

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3.4 25 votes

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Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.