AMD Radeon HD 7970 vs NVIDIA GeForce MX570 Comparison

NVIDIA GeForce MX570 and AMD Radeon HD 7970 represent two very different eras of GPU design, with the former being a modern low-power Ampere part and the latter a 2012 flagship from the Southern Islands generation. The benchmark data shows a clear overall winner, but the specific architectural trade-offs between these two end-of-life products reveal distinct strengths that matter depending on the workload.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The sole benchmark result in the database is Geekbench OpenCL, and it shows a decisive victory for the NVIDIA GeForce MX570. The MX570 scores 38,299 points, while the AMD Radeon HD 7970 scores 34,541 points. This translates to a delta of 10.9 percent in favor of the MX570, making it the clear winner in this head-to-head comparison. The win count reflects this, with the MX570 taking 1 win and the HD 7970 taking 0 wins.

Looking at the percentile rankings, the MX570 sits at the 81st percentile of all GPUs, while the HD 7970 sits at the 79th percentile. This two-percentile gap may seem small, but the actual score difference of 3,758 points is substantial in raw compute terms. The MX570's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (38,349 points, 0.1 percent behind), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (38,135 points, 0.4 percent ahead), and the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A (38,691 points, 1 percent behind). This places the MX570 in a performance tier that includes some of NVIDIA's most capable mobile parts.

The HD 7970's nearest rivals paint a different picture. It sits between the NVIDIA T1000 8 GB (34,561 points, 0.1 percent behind) and the NVIDIA TITAN V (34,355 points, 0.5 percent ahead). The NVIDIA A2 (34,690 points) is 0.4 percent ahead, and the NVIDIA RTX A1000 (34,207 points) is 1 percent behind. This clustering around the 34,500-point mark suggests the HD 7970's OpenCL performance is firmly in the mid-range of the current database, despite its age.

The 10.9 percent delta between the two cards is notable because the HD 7970 has significantly higher raw memory bandwidth and texture throughput. Yet the MX570 still wins by a comfortable margin. The data shows that modern architecture efficiency can overcome older, more brute-force designs. The MX570's FP32 compute of 4.731 TFLOPS exceeds the HD 7970's 3.789 TFLOPS, which likely plays a decisive role in the OpenCL score.

Where Each One Wins

The MX570 wins the only benchmark tested, so it takes the compute crown without contest. Its advantage lies in its Ampere architecture's ability to deliver high FP32 throughput at a fraction of the power draw. The MX570 produces 4.731 TFLOPS of FP32 compute from a 15 W TDP, while the HD 7970 produces 3.789 TFLOPS from a 250 W TDP. This means the MX570 achieves roughly 25 percent higher compute throughput while consuming 94 percent less power according to the TDP figures. In any power-constrained scenario, such as a thin-and-light laptop, the MX570 is the only viable option between these two.

The HD 7970, despite losing the compute benchmark, has clear advantages in specific areas that the MX570 cannot match. Its memory subsystem is vastly superior: 3 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus delivers 264.0 GB/s of bandwidth, compared to the MX570's 2 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus delivering 96.00 GB/s. That is 2.75 times more memory bandwidth for the HD 7970. For workloads that are bandwidth-bound, such as certain rendering or large-data compute tasks, the HD 7970's 264.0 GB/s would be a significant asset. Its texture rate of 118.4 GTexel/s also dwarfs the MX570's 73.92 GTexel/s, giving it a clear edge in texture-heavy scenarios.

The HD 7970 also offers more display outputs, with 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.4a, and 2x mini-DisplayPort 1.2, whereas the MX570's outputs are listed as "Portable Device Dependent." For a desktop user needing multiple simultaneous displays, the HD 7970 is the practical choice. The HD 7970's 3 GB memory capacity also exceeds the MX570's 2 GB, which can matter for larger datasets or higher-resolution textures.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is enormous, reflecting nearly a decade of GPU evolution. The MX570 uses the GA107S chip built on Samsung's 8 nm process, featuring 8,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die. This yields a transistor density of 43.5 million per square millimeter. The HD 7970 uses the Tahiti chip built on TSMC's 28 nm process, with 4,313 million transistors on a 352 mm² die, for a density of just 12.3 million per square millimeter. The MX570 packs more than twice the transistors into a smaller die, proof of process node advancement.

The MX570 is based on the Ampere architecture, which supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. It includes 16 ray tracing cores and 64 tensor cores, features the HD 7970 lacks entirely. The MX570 also has 2,048 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. Its FP16 performance matches its FP32 at 4.731 TFLOPS with a 1:1 ratio, enabling faster half-precision compute for AI and machine learning workloads.

The HD 7970 uses the older GCN 1.0 architecture, which supports DirectX 12 (11_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. It has 2,048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. Its FP32 compute is 3.789 TFLOPS, and it has no FP16 support listed. The HD 7970's memory runs at 1,375 MHz (5.5 Gbps effective) on a 384-bit bus, versus the MX570's 1,500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) on a 64-bit bus. The MX570's GDDR6 memory operates at a much higher effective speed, but the HD 7970's wider bus compensates with far greater total bandwidth.

Power and physical design also differ sharply. The MX570 is an IGP (integrated graphics processor) with a 15 W TDP, no power connectors, and PCIe 4.0 x8 interface. The HD 7970 is a dual-slot card with a 250 W TDP, requiring a 600 W PSU and using 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin power connectors. It measures 275 mm by 111 mm by 38 mm, while the MX570 has no listed dimensions. The HD 7970 also uses PCIe 3.0 x16, while the MX570 uses PCIe 4.0 x8, which offers comparable bandwidth despite fewer lanes.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has higher compute performance in OpenCL?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce MX570 scores 38,299 points in Geekbench OpenCL, which is 10.9 percent higher than the AMD Radeon HD 7970's score of 34,541 points.

Q: How does memory bandwidth compare between the two cards?

A: The AMD Radeon HD 7970 offers 264.0 GB/s of bandwidth from its 384-bit GDDR5 bus, while the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 offers 96.00 GB/s from its 64-bit GDDR6 bus. The HD 7970 has 2.75 times more bandwidth.

Q: Does the MX570 support ray tracing?

A: Yes, the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 includes 16 ray tracing cores and 64 tensor cores as part of its Ampere architecture, which supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2). The AMD Radeon HD 7970 has no ray tracing or tensor cores.

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce MX570 has a 15 W TDP and requires no power connectors, while the AMD Radeon HD 7970 has a 250 W TDP and requires both a 6-pin and an 8-pin power connector, with a suggested PSU of 600 W.

Q: Which GPU has more video memory?

A: The AMD Radeon HD 7970 has 3 GB of GDDR5 memory, while the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 has 2 GB of GDDR6 memory. The HD 7970 also has a wider 384-bit memory bus versus the MX570's 64-bit bus.

Q: How do these cards compare to their nearest rivals?

A: The MX570 is within 1.1 percent of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile and RTX 5080 Mobile. The HD 7970 is within 1 percent of the NVIDIA TITAN V and RTX A1000, with its closest rival being the NVIDIA T1000 8 GB at just 0.1 percent behind.

The Verdict

The data presents a straightforward choice for compute-oriented workloads: the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 wins the only benchmark tested, and it wins decisively. Its 38,299 OpenCL score against the HD 7970's 34,541 represents a 10.9 percent advantage, and its 81st percentile ranking versus 79th confirms it sits in a higher performance tier. For anyone running OpenCL compute tasks, the MX570 is the better performer, and it achieves this at 15 W TDP versus 250 W, which is a massive efficiency advantage that the HD 7970 cannot overcome.

However, the HD 7970 is not without its merits. Its 264.0 GB/s memory bandwidth, 3 GB capacity, and 118.4 GTexel/s texture rate make it a better fit for bandwidth-sensitive or texture-heavy workloads. Its 384-bit bus and dual-slot desktop form factor with multiple display outputs (DVI, HDMI 1.4a, and two mini-DisplayPort 1.2) position it as a more flexible desktop part, especially for multi-monitor setups. The HD 7970 also launched with an MSRP of 549 USD, though pricing is not a factor in the performance verdict.

For most users, the MX570 is the logical pick. It wins the benchmark, offers modern features like ray tracing and tensor cores, supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, and does so with negligible power draw. The HD 7970 is a relic of a different era, where raw bandwidth and texture throughput were the primary levers for performance. In the current benchmark landscape, those strengths do not translate to a win. The MX570's architecture simply does more with less, and the 10.9 percent delta in OpenCL performance reflects that. If the workload is compute-bound, choose the MX570. If the workload is memory-bandwidth-bound and power is not a constraint, the HD 7970's 264.0 GB/s may still serve, but the benchmark data does not support it as the overall winner.