AMD Radeon HD 8970M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile and AMD Radeon HD 8970M represent two vastly different eras of mobile graphics. The data places them in nearly the same overall percentile bracket—the RTX 4060 Mobile at 67 and the HD 8970M at 66—but a closer look at the benchmark results reveals a generational chasm in raw performance. The RTX 4060 Mobile delivers an average benchmark score of 22,729, while the HD 8970M trails at 21,237, a gap that widens dramatically in compute workloads.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The single available head-to-head comparison is a decisive victory for the newer GPU. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile scores 89,420 points against the AMD Radeon HD 8970M’s 21,237 points. That is a delta of 321.1%—the RTX 4060 Mobile is more than four times faster in this compute-oriented workload. This result is not a marginal improvement; it is a complete overhaul of processing capability. The RTX 4060 Mobile’s score of 89,420 is also higher than its own average benchmark score of 22,729, indicating that this specific test is particularly favorable to its architecture. Conversely, the HD 8970M’s OpenCL score of 21,237 is nearly identical to its average of 21,237, suggesting that this workload is representative of its overall capabilities.

The deltaPct value of 321.1% dwarfs any comparison found in the rivals list. For context, the RTX 4060 Mobile’s nearest rivals are all within a tight 1.3% band: it sits 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, 0.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, 1.3% behind the Intel Arc B580, and 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile. The HD 8970M, meanwhile, sits 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL, 0.7% behind the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile, 1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050, and 1.8% behind the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000. Neither GPU is an outlier in its own peer group, but the head-to-head delta shows how far apart those peer groups are.

The wins tally is one for the RTX 4060 Mobile and zero for the HD 8970M. That single win, however, is decisive enough to define the entire comparison. The RTX 4060 Mobile’s passmark scores further illustrate its breadth: 17,469 in G3D, 6,816 in GPU compute, 730 in G2D, 216 in DirectX 9, 157 in DirectX 11, 107 in DirectX 10, and 73 in DirectX 12. The HD 8970M has no corresponding passmark data in the fact pack, leaving the OpenCL result as the only direct numerical comparison. Even so, the 321.1% delta is a clear verdict: the RTX 4060 Mobile is in a different performance class.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile has an average benchmark score of 22,729, while the AMD Radeon HD 8970M averages 21,237. That puts the RTX 4060 Mobile roughly 7% higher overall.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The RTX 4060 Mobile scores 89,420, which is 321.1% higher than the HD 8970M’s 21,237. This is the only head-to-head benchmark available, and it shows a massive compute advantage for the NVIDIA part.

Q: Are these GPUs in the same performance percentile?

A: Yes, nearly. The RTX 4060 Mobile sits in the 67th percentile of all GPUs, while the HD 8970M sits in the 66th percentile. Despite the similar percentile, their nearest rivals are completely different, reflecting the era each card belongs to.

Q: What are the nearest rivals for each GPU?

A: For the RTX 4060 Mobile, the nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (0.7% ahead), AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (0.8% behind), Intel Arc B580 (1.3% ahead), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile (1.3% behind). For the HD 8970M, the nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (0.4% behind), NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile (0.7% ahead), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 (1% behind), and NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 (1.8% ahead).

Q: Which GPU has more shading units?

A: The RTX 4060 Mobile has 3,072 shading units, compared to 1,280 on the HD 8970M. That is a 2.4x difference in raw shader count.

Q: What is the production status of each GPU?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile is marked as "Active" in production, while the AMD Radeon HD 8970M is listed as "End-of-life."

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is the primary driver of their performance disparity. The RTX 4060 Mobile uses the AD107 chip built on NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace architecture, manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It packs 18,900 million transistors into a 159 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 118.9 million per square millimeter. In contrast, the HD 8970M uses the Neptune chip based on AMD’s GCN 1.0 architecture, built on a 28 nm process also at TSMC. It contains 2,800 million transistors on a 212 mm² die, for a density of just 13.2 million per square millimeter. The process node difference alone—5 nm versus 28 nm—explains why the RTX 4060 Mobile fits nearly seven times more transistors into a smaller physical area.

The RTX 4060 Mobile brings features that simply did not exist in the HD 8970M’s era. It includes 24 ray tracing cores and 96 tensor cores, neither of which the HD 8970M has at all. The Ada Lovelace GPU also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the GCN part tops out at DirectX 12 (11_1) and Vulkan 1.2.170. Both support OpenGL 4.6. The RTX 4060 Mobile’s FP32 throughput is 11.61 TFLOPS, and it also offers FP16 at 11.61 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio). The HD 8970M manages 2.304 TFLOPS of FP32 and has no listed FP16 capability. These architectural differences are not incremental; they represent a fundamental shift in GPU design philosophy, moving from pure rasterization to a hybrid approach that includes dedicated hardware for ray tracing and AI acceleration.

Specification Differences

The specification sheet tells a story of generational progress. The RTX 4060 Mobile has a base clock of 1545 MHz and a boost clock of 1890 MHz, while the HD 8970M runs at 850 MHz base and 900 MHz boost. Memory configurations are starkly different: the RTX 4060 Mobile offers 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth with memory clocked at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective). The HD 8970M has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, yielding 153.6 GB/s of bandwidth at 1200 MHz (4.8 Gbps effective). The RTX 4060 Mobile has more memory, faster memory, and a higher effective data rate, despite the narrower bus width.

Compute unit counts also favor the newer card. The RTX 4060 Mobile has 96 texture mapping units and 48 render output units, versus 80 TMUs and 32 ROPs on the HD 8970M. Pixel rate is 90.72 GPixel/s for the RTX 4060 Mobile, compared to 28.80 GPixel/s for the HD 8970M. Texture rate is 181.4 GTexel/s versus 72.00 GTexel/s. The RTX 4060 Mobile draws up to 115 W, while the HD 8970M is rated at 100 W. The bus interface differs as well: PCIe 4.0 x8 for the RTX 4060 Mobile versus PCIe 3.0 x16 for the HD 8970M. Form factor also differs, with the RTX 4060 Mobile listed as "IGP" and the HD 8970M as an "MXM Module." The RTX 4060 Mobile has no power connectors listed, while the HD 8970M has none specified either.

Where Each One Wins

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile wins in every measurable category from the fact pack. Its single head-to-head benchmark victory in OpenCL, with a 321.1% delta, establishes it as the clear choice for compute-intensive tasks such as machine learning inference, video encoding, or scientific workloads that leverage GPGPU acceleration. Its higher FP32 throughput (11.61 TFLOPS versus 2.304 TFLOPS) and support for FP16 make it suitable for workloads that benefit from mixed-precision arithmetic. The inclusion of ray tracing and tensor cores means it can handle modern gaming features like real-time ray tracing and DLSS-style upscaling, which are entirely absent on the HD 8970M.

The AMD Radeon HD 8970M, despite its age, retains one nominal advantage: its 256-bit memory bus is twice as wide as the RTX 4060 Mobile’s 128-bit bus. In theory, this could benefit memory-bandwidth-bound scenarios, but the HD 8970M’s lower memory clock and older GDDR5 technology result in a bandwidth of 153.6 GB/s, which is 40% lower than the RTX 4060 Mobile’s 256.0 GB/s. The HD 8970M also has a lower TDP of 100 W versus 115 W, making it potentially more efficient in pure power draw, but its performance per watt is far worse given the massive compute gap. Its MXM form factor and PCIe 3.0 x16 interface may offer compatibility with older laptops, but that is a niche use case.

For gaming, the RTX 4060 Mobile’s DirectX 12 Ultimate support and higher pixel/texture rates make it the only viable option for modern titles. The HD 8970M’s DirectX 12 (11_1) support is functionally a legacy feature. For productivity, the RTX 4060 Mobile’s 8 GB VRAM and higher bandwidth are better suited to large textures and datasets. The HD 8970M’s 4 GB VRAM is a bottleneck for contemporary workloads. In short, the RTX 4060 Mobile is the winner for any current or future use case, while the HD 8970M is a historical artifact that can only serve in legacy systems or very light tasks. The data is unambiguous: the RTX 4060 Mobile is the superior GPU by every metric recorded.