AMD Radeon HD 7970M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Comparison

The Verdict

The data presents a decisive outcome: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is the overwhelmingly stronger GPU. In the single shared benchmark test, Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 3060 Ti scores 78,927, which is 78.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon HD 7970M's 17,019. The RTX 3060 Ti wins the head-to-head 1–0. The HD 7970M is an end-of-life mobile part from 2012, while the RTX 3060 Ti is a desktop card from 2020; the performance gulf reflects that generational leap. For anyone choosing between these two for a system today, the RTX 3060 Ti is the only sensible pick for any modern gaming or compute workload. The HD 7970M's only conceivable role would be in a legacy portable system where its MXM form factor and 100 W TDP are mandatory constraints, but its performance ceiling is so far below the RTX 3060 Ti that it cannot be recommended for new purchases. The RTX 3060 Ti also offers 16.20 TFLOPS FP32 versus 2.176 TFLOPS, and its 8 GB GDDR6 memory at 448.0 GB/s dwarfs the 2 GB GDDR5 at 153.6 GB/s. There is no scenario in the data where the AMD part wins.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins the head-to-head benchmark comparison?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti wins the only shared test, Geekbench OpenCL, scoring 78,927 against the AMD Radeon HD 7970M's 17,019, a delta of 78.4%.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in memory capacity and bandwidth?

A: The RTX 3060 Ti has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the HD 7970M has 2 GB of GDDR5 with 153.6 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: What are the transistor counts and process nodes?

A: The RTX 3060 Ti uses 17,400 million transistors on Samsung's 8 nm process, while the HD 7970M uses 2,800 million transistors on TSMC's 28 nm process.

Q: Does the RTX 3060 Ti support hardware ray tracing?

A: Yes, the RTX 3060 Ti has 38 RT cores, while the HD 7970M has none listed.

Q: What are the TDPs of the two cards?

A: The RTX 3060 Ti has a 200 W TDP, double the HD 7970M's 100 W TDP.

Q: Which card has a higher percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The HD 7970M ranks in the 60th percentile, slightly higher than the RTX 3060 Ti's 59th percentile, despite the RTX 3060 Ti's far higher raw scores.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs belong to completely different architectural eras. The AMD Radeon HD 7970M is built on GCN 1.0, with a chip codenamed Wimbledon, and is part of the London (HD 7900M) generation. It uses a 28 nm process at TSMC, packing 2,800 million transistors into a 212 mm² die, for a transistor density of 13.2M per mm². In contrast, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is based on the Ampere architecture, with a GA104 chip, and belongs to the GeForce 30 series. It uses Samsung's 8 nm process, housing 17,400 million transistors on a 392 mm² die, achieving a density of 44.4M per mm². That density difference — roughly 3.4x — illustrates how much more tightly packed the newer chip is. The RTX 3060 Ti also introduces dedicated hardware features that the HD 7970M lacks: 38 RT cores for ray tracing and 152 tensor cores for AI workloads. The HD 7970M has no such units. The DX12 support also differs: the HD 7970M offers DirectX 12 (11_1), while the RTX 3060 Ti supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2). Vulkan support is also newer on the NVIDIA part, at version 1.4 versus 1.2.170.

Specification Differences

Beyond the architecture, the raw specifications diverge sharply. The RTX 3060 Ti has 4,864 shading units, 152 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 80 render output units (ROPs). The HD 7970M has 1,280 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. That is a 3.8x difference in shading units and a 2.5x gap in ROPs. Clock speeds tell a similar story: the RTX 3060 Ti has a base clock of 1410 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, while the HD 7970M's base and boost clocks are not listed, but its memory clock runs at 1200 MHz (4.8 Gbps effective) versus the RTX 3060 Ti's 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The pixel rate for the RTX 3060 Ti is 133.2 GPixel/s, nearly five times the HD 7970M's 27.20 GPixel/s. The texture rate is 253.1 GTexel/s versus 68.00 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 16.20 TFLOPS versus 2.176 TFLOPS, and the RTX 3060 Ti also lists FP16 at 16.20 TFLOPS (1:1), while the HD 7970M has no FP16 figure. The RTX 3060 Ti has a 200 W TDP, a dual-slot cooler, a 1x 12-pin power connector, a suggested 550 W PSU, and a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. The HD 7970M is a 100 W MXM module with no power connectors and an MXM-B (3.0) interface. Display outputs also differ: the RTX 3060 Ti has 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the HD 7970M's outputs are "portable device dependent." The RTX 3060 Ti measures 242 mm in length and 112 mm in height; the HD 7970M has no listed dimensions. The RTX 3060 Ti's launch MSRP is 399 USD.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct comparison available in the data is the Geekbench OpenCL test. The RTX 3060 Ti scores 78,927, while the HD 7970M scores 17,019. The delta is 78.4%, meaning the RTX 3060 Ti is roughly 4.6 times faster in this compute-oriented workload. That is not a marginal edge; it is a generational chasm. To contextualize the HD 7970M's score, its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 at 17,037 (0.1% ahead), the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT at 17,083 (0.4% ahead), and the NVIDIA Tesla M4 at 16,932 (0.5% behind). The HD 7970M also sits near the RTX 3070, which scores 17,208 (1.1% ahead). So the HD 7970M is competitive with those older or lower-tier cards, but the RTX 3060 Ti's nearest rivals are entirely different: the AMD Radeon RX 9060 at 16,014 (0.7% behind the RTX 3060 Ti), the Radeon Pro 5600M at 16,351 (1.4% behind), and the Radeon RX 5700 XT at 16,361 (1.4% behind). The RTX 3060 Ti also has its own benchmark suite: PassMark G3D scores 20,349, PassMark GPU Compute scores 10,006, Geekbench Vulkan scores 47,784, and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 scores 2,626. The HD 7970M has only the one OpenCL score. The RTX 3060 Ti's average benchmark score is 16,129, versus the HD 7970M's 17,019 — but that average includes all of the RTX 3060 Ti's varied tests, some of which (like PassMark DirectX 9 at 234) are lower. The OpenCL gap remains the cleanest point of comparison.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon HD 7970M wins in exactly one category in the data: percentile ranking. It sits at the 60th percentile among all GPUs, while the RTX 3060 Ti sits at the 59th percentile. This is a quirk of the database's distribution — the HD 7970M's score of 17,019 on OpenCL falls in a denser cluster of mid-range results, whereas the RTX 3060 Ti's higher raw scores are more spread out. It also wins on TDP, with 100 W versus 200 W, making it a more power-efficient option for a niche portable or embedded system. Its MXM module form factor and lack of external power connectors could be an advantage in a laptop chassis where the RTX 3060 Ti's dual-slot, 242 mm length, and 12-pin connector would never fit. For legacy software, the HD 7970M's DirectX 12 (11_1) support is older, but it still supports OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.2.170.

For every other metric, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti wins decisively. It has 4x the memory (8 GB vs 2 GB), nearly 3x the bandwidth (448.0 GB/s vs 153.6 GB/s), 3.8x the shading units, 7.4x the FP32 compute (16.20 TFLOPS vs 2.176 TFLOPS), and 4.9x the pixel rate. It has RT and tensor cores, which enable ray tracing and DLSS-class features that the HD 7970M cannot perform. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, making it compatible with current-generation games. It wins the only shared benchmark by 78.4%. In terms of use cases: the RTX 3060 Ti is suited for modern gaming, ray-traced titles, AI inference, and high-resolution content creation. The HD 7970M is suited only for retro gaming on older APIs or for a low-power mobile workstation that requires an MXM card. There is no scenario in the data where the HD 7970M outperforms the RTX 3060 Ti in a meaningful workload. The verdict is unambiguous.