Radeon E8870 MXM vs HD 7970M

#ad 
Buy on Amazon
VS

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking470not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency6.59no data
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2011−2020)GCN 2.0 (2013−2017)
GPU code nameWimbledonSaturn
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date24 April 2012 (12 years ago)29 September 2015 (9 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 cores1280768
Core clock speed850 MHz1000 MHz
Number of transistors2,800 million2,080 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm28 nm
Power consumption (TDP)100 Watt75 Watt
Texture fill rate68.0048.00
Floating-point processing power2.176 TFLOPS1.536 TFLOPS
ROPs3216
TMUs8048

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 sizelargeno data
InterfaceMXM-B (3.0)MXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectorsNoneNone

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 GB4 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1200 MHz1500 MHz
Memory bandwidth153.6 GB/s96 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 ConnectorsNo outputsPortable Device Dependent

API compatibility

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

DirectX12 (11_1)12 (12_0)
Shader Model5.16.5 (6.0)
OpenGL4.64.6
OpenCL1.22.1
Vulkan1.2.1311.2.170

Pros & cons summary


Recency 24 April 2012 29 September 2015
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 4 GB
Power consumption (TDP) 100 Watt 75 Watt

E8870 MXM has an age advantage of 3 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and 33.3% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 7970M and Radeon E8870 MXM. 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.

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


AMD Radeon HD 7970M
Radeon HD 7970M
AMD Radeon E8870 MXM
Radeon E8870 MXM

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

Rate Radeon HD 7970M on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

No user ratings yet.

Rate Radeon E8870 MXM on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Questions & comments

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