AMD Radeon HD 7970 vs NVIDIA CMP 70HX Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains a single direct benchmark comparison between these two cards, and the result is a decisive victory for the decade-old AMD Radeon HD 7970. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the AMD card scores 34,541 points against the NVIDIA CMP 70HX's 25,135 points. That is a 37.4% advantage for the AMD card, a substantial margin that flips the expected narrative given the age gap between these products.

The AMD Radeon HD 7970's OpenCL score places it at the 79th percentile of all GPUs in the database, while the NVIDIA CMP 70HX sits at the 75th percentile. The AMD card's nearest rivals in the database are the NVIDIA T1000 8 GB (34,561 points, 0.1% higher), the NVIDIA A2 (34,690 points, 0.4% higher), the NVIDIA TITAN V (34,355 points, 0.5% lower), and the NVIDIA RTX A1000 (34,207 points, 1% lower). This clustering shows the HD 7970 is competitive with modern professional and data-center oriented GPUs in this specific compute workload.

The NVIDIA CMP 70HX, despite its much newer architecture, lands in a different performance tier in this test. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla M60 (30,490 points, 0% delta), the AMD Radeon RX 6700 (30,433 points, 0.1% higher), the AMD Radeon RX 6800 (30,095 points, 1.3% higher), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (29,945 points, 1.8% higher). The CMP 70HX is essentially tied with the Tesla M60, a card from a much older generation, and it trails the HD 7970 by a wide margin in this OpenCL workload.

There is one additional benchmark result for the CMP 70HX that the HD 7970 does not have recorded: a Geekbench Vulkan score of 35,817. While the HD 7970 supports Vulkan 1.2.170, the database does not list a Vulkan benchmark score for it, so no direct comparison is possible for that API. This means the only head-to-head data point we have favors the AMD card, and it does so emphatically.

Where Each One Wins

Based on the recorded data, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 wins the only directly comparable benchmark. Its 37.4% lead in Geekbench OpenCL is the single clear-cut victory in this matchup. The HD 7970 also holds a higher percentile ranking (79th versus 75th) among all GPUs in the database, reinforcing that its compute performance is not merely a fluke of one test.

The NVIDIA CMP 70HX, however, has a notable advantage in raw specifications that the benchmark does not capture. It offers 8 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 608.3 GB/s of bandwidth, compared to the HD 7970's 3 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus with 264.0 GB/s. The CMP 70HX also has a much higher peak FP32 throughput at 10.71 TFLOPS versus the HD 7970's 3.789 TFLOPS. These figures suggest the NVIDIA card should be faster in certain memory-bandwidth-bound or raw-throughput-bound tasks, but the OpenCL result indicates that the older GCN architecture is more efficient in the specific workload tested.

For use-case analysis, the HD 7970 is a card with display outputs (1x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, 2x mini-DisplayPort 1.2) and full PCIe 3.0 x16 connectivity, making it suitable for general-purpose compute and even display tasks. The CMP 70HX has no display outputs at all, a PCIe 1.0 x4 interface, and is explicitly positioned as a mining GPU. This means the CMP 70HX's practical utility is limited to compute or mining workloads where display output is irrelevant, whereas the HD 7970 can serve in a broader range of roles.

The CMP 70HX does win on architectural features: it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), has 30 ray tracing cores and 120 tensor cores, and offers FP16 at a 1:1 ratio to FP32. The HD 7970 lacks these features entirely, with no ray tracing or tensor core support. For workloads that leverage these modern APIs or hardware units, the CMP 70HX would be the only choice, but the database does not provide benchmark results to quantify that advantage.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from completely different eras and design philosophies. The AMD Radeon HD 7970 uses the Tahiti chip built on GCN 1.0 architecture, fabricated on a 28 nm process at TSMC. It packs 4,313 million transistors into a 352 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 12.3 million transistors per square millimeter. Its memory clocks run at 1375 MHz (5.5 Gbps effective) for GDDR5.

The NVIDIA CMP 70HX uses the GA104 chip on Ampere architecture, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. It contains 17,400 million transistors in a 392 mm² die, giving it a much higher transistor density of 44.4 million per square millimeter. Its base clock is 1365 MHz with a boost clock of 1395 MHz, and its GDDR6X memory runs at 1188 MHz (19 Gbps effective).

Compute resources differ sharply. The HD 7970 has 2,048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units. The CMP 70HX has 3,840 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The NVIDIA card also adds 30 ray tracing cores and 120 tensor cores, which the AMD card entirely lacks. Pixel rate for the CMP 70HX is 89.28 GPixel/s versus 29.60 GPixel/s for the HD 7970, and texture rate is 167.4 GTexel/s versus 118.4 GTexel/s.

The power and physical profiles also diverge. The HD 7970 has a TDP of 250 W and requires a 600 W power supply, using one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector. The CMP 70HX has no recorded TDP but suggests a 200 W power supply and uses a single 12-pin connector. Both are dual-slot cards, with the HD 7970 measuring 275 mm in length and the CMP 70HX at 267 mm.

API support favors the NVIDIA card significantly. The CMP 70HX supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, while the HD 7970 is limited to DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The NVIDIA card also supports FP16 at a 1:1 ratio, whereas the HD 7970 has no recorded FP16 capability.

The Verdict

The data presents an unusual conclusion: the AMD Radeon HD 7970, released in early 2012 at a launch MSRP of 549 USD, outperforms the NVIDIA CMP 70HX in the only directly comparable benchmark by 37.4%. This is despite the CMP 70HX having roughly 2.8 times the FP32 throughput, more than double the memory bandwidth, and a much newer architecture. The OpenCL score of 34,541 for the HD 7970 versus 25,135 for the CMP 70HX places the older card in a higher performance percentile (79th versus 75th) and among more competitive company in terms of nearest rivals.

However, the CMP 70HX is not without its own strengths based on the recorded specifications. It offers 8 GB of memory versus 3 GB, a wider memory bus in terms of bandwidth efficiency (608.3 GB/s versus 264.0 GB/s), and modern features like ray tracing cores, tensor cores, and DirectX 12 Ultimate support. Its Vulkan score of 35,817 is the highest single benchmark result recorded for either card, though no comparable Vulkan score exists for the HD 7970.

For users prioritizing raw OpenCL compute performance as measured by the database, the HD 7970 is the clear winner. It also has the advantage of display outputs, making it a more versatile card for any task that requires visuals. For users who need the CMP 70HX's specific features, namely its large memory pool, high bandwidth, or tensor/ray tracing capabilities, the NVIDIA card would be the only option, but those advantages do not translate into a higher OpenCL score in the recorded data.

The CMP 70HX is further handicapped by its PCIe 1.0 x4 interface, which severely limits data transfer speeds between the card and the host system. The HD 7970's PCIe 3.0 x16 interface provides significantly more bandwidth for data-intensive workloads. This, combined with the CMP 70HX's lack of display outputs, makes it a highly specialized piece of hardware suited only for mining or headless compute tasks, while the HD 7970 remains a more general-purpose device.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher Geekbench OpenCL score?

A: The AMD Radeon HD 7970 scores 34,541 points, which is 37.4% higher than the NVIDIA CMP 70HX's 25,135 points.

Q: Does the NVIDIA CMP 70HX have any benchmark advantage over the AMD HD 7970?

A: The CMP 70HX has a recorded Geekbench Vulkan score of 35,817, but the HD 7970 has no recorded Vulkan score, so no direct comparison exists for that test.

Q: What is the memory configuration of each card?

A: The AMD Radeon HD 7970 has 3 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus with 264.0 GB/s bandwidth. The NVIDIA CMP 70HX has 8 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus with 608.3 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: Which card supports ray tracing?

A: The NVIDIA CMP 70HX has 30 ray tracing cores and 120 tensor cores. The AMD Radeon HD 7970 has no ray tracing or tensor core support.

Q: Can either card be used with a display?

A: The AMD Radeon HD 7970 has display outputs including 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 2x mini-DisplayPort 1.2. The NVIDIA CMP 70HX has no display outputs.

Q: What are the power supply requirements for each card?

A: The AMD Radeon HD 7970 has a TDP of 250 W and suggests a 600 W power supply. The NVIDIA CMP 70HX has no recorded TDP but suggests a 200 W power supply.