AMD Radeon HD 7970 vs AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE Comparison

# AMD Radeon HD 7970 vs AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE

The AMD Radeon HD 7970, built on the 28 nm Tahiti chip with GCN 1.0 architecture, and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE, built on the 5 nm Navi 31 chip with RDNA 3.0 architecture, represent two vastly different eras of AMD graphics. The HD 7970 was released in early 2012 as a Southern Islands generation product with a 3 GB GDDR5 memory pool and a 384-bit bus, while the RX 7900 GRE arrived in mid-2023 as part of the Navi III (RX 7000) generation, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus. The data shows a single head-to-head benchmark result, with the RX 7900 GRE delivering a score of 175758 in Geekbench OpenCL against the HD 7970's 34541, a delta of -80.3% from the perspective of the older card. This massive gap underscores the generational leap in compute capability, but the two cards also occupy different positions in the broader GPU landscape, with the HD 7970 sitting at the 79th percentile of all GPUs and the RX 7900 GRE at the 77th percentile.

Where Each One Wins

The RX 7900 GRE wins the only directly comparable benchmark in the data set, the Geekbench OpenCL test, with a score of 175758 versus the HD 7970's 34541. That represents an 80.3% advantage for the newer card, a figure that reflects the fundamental shift in compute architecture from GCN 1.0 to RDNA 3.0. The RX 7900 GRE also demonstrates a much broader benchmark profile, with scores across DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12 tests, plus compute and 2D workloads, whereas the HD 7970 has only a single recorded OpenCL score. In Passmark tests, the RX 7900 GRE reaches 310 in DirectX 9, 139 in DirectX 10, 300 in DirectX 11, 107 in DirectX 12, and 27089 in the 3D test, alongside a GPU compute score of 15016 and a G2D score of 1180. These results indicate that the RX 7900 GRE is a modern, feature-complete GPU capable of handling legacy APIs and current workloads alike.

The HD 7970, by contrast, has no recorded wins in the head-to-head data. Its single benchmark score of 34541 places it in the 79th percentile of all GPUs, which is actually two percentage points higher than the RX 7900 GRE's 77th percentile ranking. This apparent contradiction — a lower absolute score but a higher percentile — indicates that the HD 7970's OpenCL result stands out relative to the broader GPU population of its era, while the RX 7900 GRE's average benchmark score of 32456 is pulled down by its diverse test suite, which includes lower-scoring legacy DirectX tests. The RX 7900 GRE's nearest rivals in the overall database include the AMD FirePro S10000 (32388, delta 0.2%), the AMD FirePro S9300 X2 (32540, delta -0.3%), and the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME (32601, delta -0.4%), showing that its average score sits in a tightly clustered mid-range group. The HD 7970's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA T1000 8 GB (34561, delta -0.1%), NVIDIA A2 (34690, delta -0.4%), NVIDIA TITAN V (34355, delta 0.5%), and NVIDIA RTX A1000 (34207, delta 1%), demonstrating that its OpenCL performance remains competitive with much newer professional and consumer cards.

The Verdict

For users prioritizing raw compute performance in OpenCL workloads, the RX 7900 GRE is the clear choice, as its 175758 score is more than five times the HD 7970's 34541. The newer card also offers a significantly more modern feature set, including 80 ray tracing cores, DirectX 12 Ultimate support, and Vulkan 1.4, all of which are absent from the HD 7970's specification sheet. The RX 7900 GRE's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory with 576.0 GB/s bandwidth dwarfs the HD 7970's 3 GB GDDR5 with 264.0 GB/s, making it suitable for modern high-resolution textures and large datasets. The HD 7970, however, holds a slight edge in percentile ranking at 79 versus 77, suggesting that its OpenCL score is more impressive relative to the hardware available at its time of release.

The data does not support choosing the HD 7970 for any current workload, as it wins zero head-to-head benchmarks and lacks the API support and memory capacity of the RX 7900 GRE. Its 28 nm process node and 4,313 million transistors produce a 352 mm² die with a transistor density of 12.3M per mm², whereas the RX 7900 GRE packs 57,700 million transistors into a 529 mm² die at 109.1M per mm². The RX 7900 GRE's power draw is only 10 W higher at 260 W versus 250 W, yet it delivers 45.98 TFLOPS of FP32 compute against the HD 7970's 3.789 TFLOPS, a twelve-fold increase. The verdict is straightforward: the RX 7900 GRE is the only viable option for modern applications, while the HD 7970 remains a historical artifact whose OpenCL score is notable for its era but insufficient for contemporary demands.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct comparison available in the data is the Geekbench OpenCL test. The RX 7900 GRE scores 175758, while the HD 7970 scores 34541, resulting in a delta of -80.3% for the older card. This is not a marginal improvement but a transformative leap: the RX 7900 GRE delivers 5.09 times the OpenCL performance of the HD 7970. To contextualize this within the nearest rival groups, the HD 7970's score is within 1% of the NVIDIA TITAN V (34355, delta 0.5%), the NVIDIA RTX A1000 (34207, delta 1%), and the NVIDIA T1000 8 GB (34561, delta -0.1%). The RX 7900 GRE's score, meanwhile, far exceeds any of its listed nearest rivals, though those rivals are based on average benchmark scores across multiple tests rather than the single OpenCL result. The RX 7900 GRE's average score of 32456 is actually lower than its OpenCL score, indicating that its other benchmark results, such as the Passmark DirectX 10 score of 139 or the DirectX 12 score of 107, drag down the average.

The RX 7900 GRE's OpenCL score of 175758 also dwarfs its own Vulkan score of 99850, showing a strong preference for the OpenCL compute path in this particular workload. The HD 7970 has no Vulkan score recorded, and its API support stops at Vulkan 1.2.170, whereas the RX 7900 GRE supports Vulkan 1.4. The pixel rate and texture rate figures tell a similar story: the RX 7900 GRE achieves 359.2 GPixel/s and 718.4 GTexel/s, compared to the HD 7970's 29.60 GPixel/s and 118.4 GTexel/s. These are not directly benchmarked but derived from the clock and unit specifications, and they reinforce the compute gap observed in the OpenCL test. The memory bandwidth difference is also stark: 576.0 GB/s for the RX 7900 GRE versus 264.0 GB/s for the HD 7970, a 2.18x advantage that becomes critical in memory-bound workloads.

FAQ

Q: How much faster is the RX 7900 GRE in OpenCL compared to the HD 7970?

A: The RX 7900 GRE scores 175758 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the HD 7970 scores 34541, making the newer card 80.3% faster — approximately 5.09 times the performance.

Q: Does the HD 7970 have any advantage in benchmark percentile ranking?

A: Yes, the HD 7970 sits at the 79th percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 7900 GRE is at the 77th percentile, despite the RX 7900 GRE having a much higher absolute OpenCL score.

Q: What are the nearest rivals for each card based on average benchmark scores?

A: The HD 7970's nearest rivals are the NVIDIA T1000 8 GB (34561, delta -0.1%), NVIDIA A2 (34690, delta -0.4%), NVIDIA TITAN V (34355, delta 0.5%), and NVIDIA RTX A1000 (34207, delta 1%). The RX 7900 GRE's nearest rivals are the AMD FirePro S10000 (32388, delta 0.2%), AMD FirePro S9300 X2 (32540, delta -0.3%), AMD Radeon RX 590 GME (32601, delta -0.4%), and AMD Radeon Pro 570X (32176, delta 0.9%).

Q: What memory configurations do the two cards use?

A: The HD 7970 has 3 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus with 264.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the RX 7900 GRE has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 576.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card supports more modern APIs?

A: The RX 7900 GRE supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, while the HD 7970 supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170.

Q: How do the power requirements compare?

A: The HD 7970 has a TDP of 250 W and requires a 600 W suggested PSU with 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin connectors. The RX 7900 GRE has a TDP of 260 W, also requires a 600 W suggested PSU, but uses 2x 8-pin connectors.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is immense. The HD 7970 uses the Tahiti chip on a 28 nm process at TSMC, with 4,313 million transistors on a 352 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 12.3M per mm². The RX 7900 GRE uses the Navi 31 chip on a 5 nm process, also at TSMC, with 57,700 million transistors on a 529 mm² die, achieving a density of 109.1M per mm² — nearly nine times higher. The RDNA 3.0 architecture of the RX 7900 GRE introduces a chiplet-based design with a 5 nm compute die, whereas the GCN 1.0 architecture of the HD 7970 is a monolithic 28 nm design. The RX 7900 GRE features 5120 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 160 ROPs, compared to the HD 7970's 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The RX 7900 GRE also includes 80 dedicated ray tracing cores, a feature entirely absent from the HD 7970, and supports FP16 compute at 91.96 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio), while the HD 7970 has no reported FP16 capability.

The clock speeds reflect the process node advantages: the RX 7900 GRE has a base clock of 1287 MHz, a game clock of 1880 MHz, and a boost clock of 2245 MHz, whereas the HD 7970 has no base or boost clocks listed, only a memory clock of 1375 MHz (5.5 Gbps effective). The memory subsystems are fundamentally different, with the HD 7970 using GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus and the RX 7900 GRE using GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, though the newer card achieves more than double the bandwidth due to higher effective speeds (18 Gbps versus 5.5 Gbps). The bus interface also advances from PCIe 3.0 x16 on the HD 7970 to PCIe 4.0 x16 on the RX 7900 GRE. Display outputs differ as well: the HD 7970 offers 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 2x mini-DisplayPort 1.2, while the RX 7900 GRE provides 1x HDMI 2.1a, 2x DisplayPort 2.1, and 1x USB Type-C. Physical dimensions are similar in length (275 mm versus 276 mm) and height (111 mm versus 110 mm), but the RX 7900 GRE is thicker at 51 mm versus 38 mm, both occupying dual-slot designs. The HD 7970 is end-of-life with a successor in Sea Islands, while the RX 7900 GRE remains active with a successor in Navi IV, and both cards launched at the same 549 USD MSRP.