GPU Comparison

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score, and by how much?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 has an average benchmark score of 7157, while the AMD Radeon 540 scores 7673 on average. Despite the GTX 970's lower average, it wins both head-to-head benchmark tests.

Q: How does the AMD Radeon 540 compare to its closest rival in average score?

A: The Radeon 540's nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, which scores 7723 on average. That puts the Radeon 540 just 0.6% behind, a negligible gap in real-world terms.

Q: What is the performance gap in the head-to-head OpenCL benchmark?

A: In Geekbench OpenCL, the GTX 970 scores 29982 versus the Radeon 540's 6184. The delta is -79.4%, meaning the GTX 970 delivers roughly four times the performance in this test.

Q: Does the Radeon 540 win any benchmark category?

A: No. The data shows zero wins for the Radeon 540 across all head-to-head tests. The GTX 970 wins 2 out of 2 benchmarks.

Q: How do the two cards rank among all GPUs?

A: The Radeon 540 sits at the 41st percentile, while the GTX 970 sits at the 39th percentile. This is a rare case where the lower-ranked card dominates in direct comparison.

Q: What interface differences exist between the two?

A: The Radeon 540 uses PCIe 3.0 x8, while the GTX 970 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. The GTX 970's wider interface doubles the available bandwidth lanes.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different architectural eras and manufacturers. The AMD Radeon 540 uses the Lexa chip built on GCN 4.0 architecture, part of the Polaris (RX 500) generation. It is fabricated by GlobalFoundries on a 14 nm process node, packing 2,200 million transistors into a 103 mm² die. The transistor density works out to 21.4 million per square millimeter.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 uses the GM204 chip on Maxwell 2.0 architecture, from the GeForce 900 generation. It is built by TSMC on a much older 28 nm node, with 5,200 million transistors on a 398 mm² die. That gives a transistor density of just 13.1 million per square millimeter, less dense, but the larger die and higher transistor count tell a story of a fundamentally more powerful design.

Both cards lack ray tracing cores and tensor cores, so neither supports dedicated hardware for those workloads. The Radeon 540 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The GTX 970 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, a slightly higher DirectX feature level and a newer Vulkan version.

Memory configurations diverge sharply. The Radeon 540 has 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a 32-bit bus, yielding 24.00 GB/s of bandwidth. The GTX 970 has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 224.4 GB/s, nearly ten times the bandwidth. This is a critical architectural difference that shows up in every memory-heavy workload.

The Radeon 540's memory clock is 1500 MHz (6 Gbps effective), while the GTX 970's memory runs at 1753 MHz (7 Gbps effective). The GTX 970 also has explicit base and boost clocks of 1050 MHz and 1178 MHz, respectively. The Radeon 540 lists no base or boost clock in the data.

Shader resources are heavily skewed toward the GTX 970. It has 1664 shading units, 104 texture mapping units, and 56 ROPs. The Radeon 540 has 384 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. The GTX 970's pixel rate of 65.97 GPixel/s and texture rate of 122.5 GTexel/s dwarf the Radeon 540's 18.93 GPixel/s and 28.39 GTexel/s.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data contains only two tests, and both go decisively to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970. This is not a close contest by any measure.

In Geekbench OpenCL, the GTX 970 scores 29982 against the Radeon 540's 6184. The delta is -79.4%, which means the Radeon 540 delivers only about one-fifth of the GTX 970's performance in this compute-oriented test. This is consistent with the massive differences in shading units, memory bandwidth, and raw FP32 throughput, the GTX 970 is rated at 3.920 TFLOPS while the Radeon 540 sits at 908.5 GFLOPS.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the gap narrows somewhat but remains one-sided. The GTX 970 scores 20005, while the Radeon 540 scores 9162. The delta is -54.2%. While the Radeon 540's Vulkan driver appears to extract relatively more performance from the hardware than OpenCL does, it still lags by more than half.

The Radeon 540's average benchmark score of 7673 is actually higher than the GTX 970's 7157 average. This inversion is worth noting: the GTX 970's average is dragged down by its many Passmark results, which include low scores like 46 in DirectX 10, 71 in DirectX 11, and 41 in DirectX 12. In contrast, the Radeon 540 only has two benchmark entries, both Geekbench tests, which tend to score higher relative to older synthetic suites.

The percentile ranks reflect this oddity. The Radeon 540 sits at the 41st percentile among all GPUs, while the GTX 970 sits at the 39th. Yet in direct head-to-head tests, the GTX 970 wins every time. This suggests that the Radeon 540's percentile is inflated by a limited benchmark sample, whereas the GTX 970's broader test coverage captures its weaknesses in older DirectX APIs.

Looking at nearest rivals, the GTX 970's closest competitor is the Intel Iris Pro Graphics P580, which scores 7170 on average, just 0.2% behind. The Radeon 540's nearest rival, the GTX 1660 Ti, scores 7723, only 0.6% ahead. The Radeon 540 also sits within 1.5% of the AMD Radeon R7 250 and 1.6% of the Intel Arc A310. This clustering suggests the Radeon 540 occupies a competitive spot in its narrow benchmark set, but the head-to-head results tell a more sobering story.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification.

Process and die: The Radeon 540 uses a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process with a 103 mm² die. The GTX 970 uses a 28 nm TSMC process with a 398 mm² die. The Radeon 540 has 2,200 million transistors versus 5,200 million for the GTX 970.

Clocks: The Radeon 540 has no listed base or boost clock, only a 1500 MHz memory clock (6 Gbps effective). The GTX 970 has a 1050 MHz base clock, 1178 MHz boost clock, and 1753 MHz memory clock (7 Gbps effective).

Memory: The Radeon 540 has 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a 32-bit bus with 24.00 GB/s bandwidth. The GTX 970 has 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 224.4 GB/s bandwidth.

Compute units: The Radeon 540 has 384 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. The GTX 970 has 1664 shading units, 104 TMUs, and 56 ROPs.

Rates: The Radeon 540 has a pixel rate of 18.93 GPixel/s, texture rate of 28.39 GTexel/s, and FP32 of 908.5 GFLOPS. The GTX 970 has a pixel rate of 65.97 GPixel/s, texture rate of 122.5 GTexel/s, and FP32 of 3.920 TFLOPS. The Radeon 540 has FP16 at 908.5 GFLOPS (1:1 ratio), while the GTX 970 has no listed FP16 capability.

Power and cooling: The Radeon 540 has a 50 W TDP, is single-slot, requires no power connectors, and suggests a 250 W PSU. The GTX 970 has a 148 W TDP, is dual-slot, requires 2x 6-pin connectors, and suggests a 300 W PSU. The Radeon 540 is clearly designed for low-power systems, while the GTX 970 expects a more robust power supply and chassis.

Interface and outputs: The Radeon 540 uses PCIe 3.0 x8 and offers 2x DisplayPort 1.4a. The GTX 970 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 and offers 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 3x DisplayPort 1.2.

Physical dimensions: The GTX 970 measures 267 mm in length, 111 mm in height, and 40 mm in width. The Radeon 540 has no listed dimensions.

API support: The Radeon 540 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The GTX 970 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

Release and status: The Radeon 540 launched on 2017-04-19, while the GTX 970 launched earlier on 2014-09-18. Both are end-of-life. The Radeon 540's predecessor is Arctic Islands and successor is Vega. The GTX 970's predecessor is GeForce 700 and successor is GeForce 10. The GTX 970 has a launch MSRP of 329 USD; the Radeon 540 has no listed MSRP.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 is the far more powerful GPU. In Geekbench OpenCL, it outperforms the Radeon 540 by 79.4%. In Geekbench Vulkan, it leads by 54.2%. The GTX 970 wins both head-to-head tests, and the Radeon 540 wins none.

The GTX 970's advantages are structural. It has more than four times the shading units (1664 vs 384), more than four times the TMUs (104 vs 24), over three times the ROPs (56 vs 16), and more than nine times the memory bandwidth (224.4 GB/s vs 24.00 GB/s). Its FP32 throughput of 3.920 TFLOPS is over four times the Radeon 540's 908.5 GFLOPS.

The Radeon 540's only statistical advantage is its average benchmark score of 7673 versus 7157, and its slightly higher percentile rank of 41 versus 39. But these metrics are misleading. The Radeon 540's score comes from just two Geekbench tests, while the GTX 970's average includes many Passmark results that drag it down. In any direct comparison, the GTX 970 wins decisively.

The GTX 970 also offers a higher DirectX feature level (12_1 vs 12_0) and newer Vulkan support (1.4 vs 1.3). It has four times the memory capacity and a much wider bus. The only areas where the Radeon 540 leads are power efficiency and physical footprint, it draws 50 W versus 148 W, is single-slot instead of dual-slot, and requires no power connectors.

For anyone choosing between these two, the data points firmly to the GTX 970 for performance. The Radeon 540's only rational appeal is in ultra-low-power or space-constrained systems where its 50 W TDP and single-slot design are decisive factors.

Where Each One Wins

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 wins in: compute performance (OpenCL by 79.4%), graphics API performance (Vulkan by 54.2%), raw shading power (1664 vs 384 units), memory bandwidth (224.4 GB/s vs 24.00 GB/s), memory capacity (4 GB vs 1 GB), texture fill (122.5 GTexel/s vs 28.39 GTexel/s), pixel fill (65.97 GPixel/s vs 18.93 GPixel/s), FP32 throughput (3.920 TFLOPS vs 908.5 GFLOPS), DirectX feature level (12_1 vs 12_0), Vulkan version (1.4 vs 1.3), PCIe interface width (x16 vs x8), and display output flexibility (5 outputs vs 2).

AMD Radeon 540 wins in: power draw (50 W vs 148 W), slot width (single-slot vs dual-slot), power connector requirements (none vs 2x 6-pin), suggested PSU (250 W vs 300 W), process node (14 nm vs 28 nm), transistor density (21.4M/mm² vs 13.1M/mm²), and average benchmark score (7673 vs 7157), though that last win is statistical noise rather than real performance.

The use-case split is clear. The GTX 970 targets anyone who needs actual graphics or compute performance: gaming, rendering, GPU-accelerated workloads, or any task that benefits from high memory bandwidth and massive shader counts. The Radeon 540 targets systems where power budget, heat output, or physical space are the primary constraints, think small form-factor builds, low-profile workstations, or machines with minimal power supplies. In those scenarios, the Radeon 540's 50 W TDP and slotless power design make it a practical choice despite its severe performance deficit. For everything else, the GTX 970 is the only rational pick based on the benchmark data.