Radeon HD 7970 X2 vs RX 580
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 251 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | 1 | not in top-100 |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | 17.65 | no data |
| Power efficiency | 8.52 | no data |
| Architecture | GCN 4.0 (2016−2020) | GCN 1.0 (2011−2020) |
| GPU code name | Polaris 20 | New Zealand |
| Market segment | Desktop | Desktop |
| Release date | 18 April 2017 (7 years ago) | 31 August 2012 (12 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $229 | $899 |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
The higher the performance-to-price ratio, the better. We use the manufacturer's recommended prices for comparison.
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 | 2304 | 2048 ×2 |
| Core clock speed | 1257 MHz | 925 MHz |
| Boost clock speed | 1340 MHz | no data |
| Number of transistors | 5,700 million | 4,313 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 14 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 185 Watt | 500 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 193.0 | 118.4 ×2 |
| Floating-point processing power | 6.175 TFLOPS | 3.789 TFLOPS ×2 |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 ×2 |
| TMUs | 144 | 128 ×2 |
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).
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Length | 241 mm | 292 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 8-pin | 3x 8-pin |
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 | 8 GB | 3 GB ×2 |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 384 Bit ×2 |
| Memory clock speed | 2000 MHz | 1375 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 256.0 GB/s | 264.0 GB/s ×2 |
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 HDMI, 3x DisplayPort | 1x DVI, 4x mini-DisplayPort |
| HDMI | + | - |
API and SDK compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 12 (12_0) | 12 (11_1) |
| Shader Model | 6.4 | 5.1 |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| OpenCL | 2.0 | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | 1.2.131 | 1.2.131 |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 18 April 2017 | 31 August 2012 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 8 GB | 3 GB |
| Chip lithography | 14 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 185 Watt | 500 Watt |
RX 580 has an age advantage of 4 years, a 166.7% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 100% more advanced lithography process, and 170.3% lower power consumption.
We couldn't decide between Radeon RX 580 and Radeon HD 7970 X2. We've got no test results to judge.
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