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Radeon HD 7970 vs Radeon R9 290
Intro
The Radeon HD 7970 has a core clock frequency of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1375 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.Compare all that to the Radeon R9 290, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 512-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.
Benchmarks
These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score
| Radeon R9 290 |
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9876 points |
| Radeon HD 7970 |
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8225 points |
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Ethereum Mining Hash Rate
| Radeon R9 290 |
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29 Mh/s |
| Radeon HD 7970 |
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21 Mh/s |
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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks
Power Consumption (Max TDP)
| Radeon HD 7970 |
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250 Watts |
| Radeon R9 290 |
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300 Watts |
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Memory Bandwidth
Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 290 should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 7970 in general. (explain)
| Radeon R9 290 |
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320000 MB/sec |
| Radeon HD 7970 |
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264000 MB/sec |
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Texel Rate
The Radeon R9 290 is a bit (more or less 8%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 7970. (explain)| Radeon R9 290 |
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128000 Mtexels/sec |
| Radeon HD 7970 |
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118400 Mtexels/sec |
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Pixel Rate
If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290 is superior to the Radeon HD 7970, and very much so. (explain)| Radeon R9 290 |
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51200 Mpixels/sec |
| Radeon HD 7970 |
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29600 Mpixels/sec |
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Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.
Price Comparison
Radeon HD 7970Amazon.com
Check prices at:
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Radeon R9 290Amazon.com
Check prices at:
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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.
Specifications
| Model | Radeon HD 7970 | Radeon R9 290 |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | AMD | AMD |
| Year | January 2012 | November 2013 |
| Code Name | Tahiti XT | Hawaii PRO |
| Memory | 3072 MB | 4096 MB |
| Core Speed | 925 MHz | 800 MHz |
| Memory Speed | 5500 MHz | 5000 MHz |
| Power (Max TDP) | 250 watts | 300 watts |
| Bandwidth | 264000 MB/sec | 320000 MB/sec |
| Texel Rate | 118400 Mtexels/sec | 128000 Mtexels/sec |
| Pixel Rate | 29600 Mpixels/sec | 51200 Mpixels/sec |
| Unified Shaders | 2048 | 2560 |
| Texture Mapping Units | 128 | 160 |
| Render Output Units | 32 | 64 |
| Bus Type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Bus Width | 384-bit | 512-bit |
| Fab Process | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Transistors | 4313 million | 6200 million |
| Bus | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| DirectX Version | DirectX 11.1 | DirectX 11.2 |
| OpenGL Version | OpenGL 4.2 | OpenGL 4.3 |
Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.
Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.
Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.
Radeon HD 7970Amazon.com
Check prices at:
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Radeon R9 290Amazon.com
Check prices at:
|
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.
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Comments
One Response to “Radeon HD 7970 vs Radeon R9 290”I'm seeing a core clock speed of 947 MHz on a stock Radeon R9 290, please update your inofrmation on this card and other radeon cards with incorrect core clock speeds.