AMD Radeon™ HD 8900 Graphics

AMD Radeon™ HD 8900 Series

The world's most advanced and versatile GPUs.

Overview

Ready for Microsoft Windows® 8 and DirectX® 11.1 gaming! Learn more.
Engineered for incredible DirectX® 11 gaming, the AMD Radeon™ HD 8970 enables staggering performance in the most demanding games, like DiRT® Showdown™, Sniper Elite V2 and Nexuiz.
Think of it as turbo for the GPU. Get automatic overclocking on the fly for better performance in your favorite games with AMD PowerTune technology, now with Boost.²
Accelerate the applications you use every day. Get faster performance in Adobe® Creative Suite® 6, Corel WinZip® and GIMP with AMD App Acceleration on the AMD Radeon™ HD 8970.³
The next generation of AMD Eyefinity technology is here, featuring all-new support for stereo 3D, universal bezel compensation and brand new display configurations for up to six monitors. Face it: the best just got better.⁴
Ready for the world’s highest-resolution displays: Featuring full support for HDMI® (with 4K) and DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2, the AMD Radeon™ HD 8970 is ready for displays up to 4096x2160.

Whitepapers

System Requirements

PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard
For AMD Radeon™ HD 8950 GPU, 500W (or greater) power supply with one 150W 8-pin and one 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connector recommended⁸
For AMD Radeon™ HD 8970 GPU, 500W (or greater) power supply with two 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connectors recommended⁸
For AMD Radeon™ HD 8950 GPU, 850W power supply (or greater) with two 150W 8-pin and two 75W 6-pin
For AMD Radeon™ HD 8970 GPU, 750W (or greater) power supply with four 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connectors recommended for AMD CrossFire™ technology

NOTE: Minimum recommended system power supply wattage is based on the specific graphics card and the typical power requirements of other system components. Your system may require more or less power. OEM and other pre-assembled PCs may have different power requirements.

For an AMD CrossFire™ system, a second AMD Radeon™ HD 8950 or 8970 GPU, an AMD CrossFire™ Ready motherboard and one AMD CrossFire™ Bridge Interconnect cable is required
PCI Express power connectors recommended for AMD CrossFire™ technology.
Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://support.amd.com/en-us/recommended/power-supplies for a list of Certified products
Minimum 4GB of system memory
8GB (or more) of system memory recommended for AMD CrossFire™ technology
Installation software requires CD-ROM drive, a keyboard, a mouse, and a display
DVD playback requires DVD drive and a DVD
Blu-ray™ playback requires Blu-ray drive and a Blu-ray disc
For an AMD CrossFire™ system, a second AMD Radeon™ HD 8970 GPU, an AMD CrossFire™ Ready motherboard and one AMD CrossFire™ Bridge Interconnect cable is required
Use of 3 or more displays with AMD Eyefinity technology requires a DisplayPort-capable panel or an AMD Eyefinity-validated dongle. See http://support.amd.com/en-us/recommended/eyefinity-adapters for a list of validated DisplayPort dongles.
64-bit operating system highly recommended
Not for professional or commercial use. Please see AMD FirePro™ products for these applications.

Specs

AMD Radeon™ HD 8970 Graphics	AMD Radeon™ HD 8950 Graphics
1GHz Engine Clock (up to 1.05GHz with boost) 3GB GDDR5 Memory 1500MHz Memory Clock (6.0 Gbps GDDR5) 288GB/s memory bandwidth 4.3 TFLOPS Single Precision compute power 1.01 TFLOPS Double Precision compute power GCN Architecture 32 Compute Units (2048 Stream Processors) 128 Texture Units 128 Z/Stencil ROP Units 32 Color ROP Units Dual geometry units	850MHz Engine Clock (Up to 925MHz with Boost) 3GB GDDR5 Memory 1250MHz Memory Clock (5.0 Gbps GDDR5) 240GB/s memory bandwidth 2.87 TFLOPS Single Precision compute power 717 GFLOPs Double Precision compute power GCN Architecture 28 Compute Units (1792 Stream Processors) 112 Texture Units 128 Z/Stencil ROP Units 32 Color ROP Units Dual geometry units
Dual Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACE) PCI Express 3.0 x16 bus interface DirectX® 11.1-capable graphics 9th generation programmable hardware tessellation units Shader Model 5.0 DirectCompute 11 Accelerated multi-threading HDR texture compression Order-independent transparency OpenGL 4.2 support Partially Resident Textures (PRT) Ultra-high resolution texture streaming technology Image quality enhancement technology Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes Adaptive anti-aliasing Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA) 2.0 DirectX® 9/10/11 Super Sample Anti-Aliasing (SSAA) Automatic LOD adjustment (Requires AMD Catalyst™ 12.4 or higher) 16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering 128-bit floating point HDR rendering AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology⁴ Up to 6 displays supported with DisplayPort 1.2 Multi-Stream Transport Independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays Display grouping Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display AMD App Acceleration³ OpenCL™ 1.2 Support Microsoft C++ AMP DirectCompute 11 Double Precision Floating Point AMD HD Media Accelerator Unified Video Decoder (UVD) H.264 VC-1 MPEG-2 (SD & HD) MVC (Blu-ray 3D) MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX/Xvid) Adobe Flash DXVA 1.0 & 2.0 support Video Codec Engine (VCE) Multi-stream hardware H.264 encoder Full-fixed mode: 1080p @ 60 FPS encoding Hybrid mode: Stream Processor-assisted encoding Enhanced Video Quality features Advanced post-processing and scaling Deblocking Denoising Automatic deinterlacing Mosquito noise reduction Edge enhancement 3:2 pulldown detection Advanced video color correction Brighter whites processing (Blue Stretch) Independent video gamma control Flesh tone correction Color vibrance control Dynamic contrast Dynamic video range control AMD HD3D technology⁵ Stereoscopic 3D display/glasses support Blu-ray 3D support Stereoscopic 3D gaming 3rd party Stereoscopic 3D middleware software support AMD CrossFire™ multi-GPU technology⁶ Dual, triple or quad-GPU scaling Cutting-edge integrated display support DisplayPort 1.2 Max resolution: 4096x2160 @ 60 Hz per display Multi-Stream 21.6 Gbps bandwidth (HBR2) High bit-rate audio Quad HD/4K/UHDTV display support 1080p60 Stereoscopic 3D (Frame Sequential Format) HDMI® (With 4K, 3D, x.v.Color™ and Deep Color) Max resolution: 4096x2160 @ 30 Hz 1080p30 Stereoscopic 3D (Packed Frame Format) Quad HD/4K/UHDTV video display support Dual-link DVI with HDCP Max resolution: 2560x1600 VGA Max resolution: 2048x1536 Integrated HD audio controller Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats AMD PowerPlay™ power management technology⁷ Automatic power management with low power idle states AMD PowerTune technology⁷ Intelligent TDP management technology Dynamic clockspeed/performance enhancement for games AMD ZeroCore Power technology⁷ Ultra-low idle power when the system’s display is off Efficient low power mode for desktop work Secondary GPUs in an AMD CrossFire™ technology configuration power down when unneeded AMD Catalyst™ graphics and HD video configuration software Software support for Windows® 7, Windows Vista® and Windows® XP. AMD Catalyst™ Control Center - AMD Catalyst™ software application and user interface for setup, configuration, and accessing features of AMD Radeon products. Unified Graphics display driver - AMD Catalyst™ software enabling other PC programs and devices to use advanced graphics, video, and features of AMD Radeon™ products.

AMD Radeon™ HD 8970 Graphics

AMD Radeon™ HD 8950 Graphics

1GHz Engine Clock (up to 1.05GHz with boost)
3GB GDDR5 Memory
1500MHz Memory Clock (6.0 Gbps GDDR5)
288GB/s memory bandwidth
4.3 TFLOPS Single Precision compute power
1.01 TFLOPS Double Precision compute power
GCN Architecture
- 32 Compute Units (2048 Stream Processors)
- 128 Texture Units
- 128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
- 32 Color ROP Units
- Dual geometry units

850MHz Engine Clock (Up to 925MHz with Boost)
3GB GDDR5 Memory
1250MHz Memory Clock (5.0 Gbps GDDR5)
240GB/s memory bandwidth
2.87 TFLOPS Single Precision compute power
717 GFLOPs Double Precision compute power
GCN Architecture
- 28 Compute Units (1792 Stream Processors)
- 112 Texture Units
- 128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
- 32 Color ROP Units
- Dual geometry units

Dual Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACE)
PCI Express 3.0 x16 bus interface
DirectX® 11.1-capable graphics
- 9th generation programmable hardware tessellation units
- Shader Model 5.0
- DirectCompute 11
- Accelerated multi-threading
- HDR texture compression
- Order-independent transparency
OpenGL 4.2 support
- Partially Resident Textures (PRT)
  - Ultra-high resolution texture streaming technology
Image quality enhancement technology
- Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes
- Adaptive anti-aliasing
- Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA) 2.0
- DirectX® 9/10/11 Super Sample Anti-Aliasing (SSAA)
  - Automatic LOD adjustment (Requires AMD Catalyst™ 12.4 or higher)
- 16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
- 128-bit floating point HDR rendering
AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology⁴
- Up to 6 displays supported with DisplayPort 1.2 Multi-Stream Transport
- Independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
- Display grouping
  - Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display
AMD App Acceleration³
- OpenCL™ 1.2 Support
- Microsoft C++ AMP
- DirectCompute 11
- Double Precision Floating Point
- AMD HD Media Accelerator
  - Unified Video Decoder (UVD)
    - H.264
    - VC-1
    - MPEG-2 (SD & HD)
    - MVC (Blu-ray 3D)
    - MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX/Xvid)
    - Adobe Flash
    - DXVA 1.0 & 2.0 support
  - Video Codec Engine (VCE)
    - Multi-stream hardware H.264 encoder
    - Full-fixed mode: 1080p @ 60 FPS encoding
    - Hybrid mode: Stream Processor-assisted encoding
  - Enhanced Video Quality features
    - Advanced post-processing and scaling
      - Deblocking
      - Denoising
      - Automatic deinterlacing
      - Mosquito noise reduction
      - Edge enhancement
      - 3:2 pulldown detection
    - Advanced video color correction
      - Brighter whites processing (Blue Stretch)
      - Independent video gamma control
      - Flesh tone correction
      - Color vibrance control
      - Dynamic contrast
      - Dynamic video range control
AMD HD3D technology⁵
- Stereoscopic 3D display/glasses support
- Blu-ray 3D support
- Stereoscopic 3D gaming
- 3rd party Stereoscopic 3D middleware software support
AMD CrossFire™ multi-GPU technology⁶
- Dual, triple or quad-GPU scaling
Cutting-edge integrated display support
- DisplayPort 1.2
  - Max resolution: 4096x2160 @ 60 Hz per display
  - Multi-Stream
  - 21.6 Gbps bandwidth (HBR2)
  - High bit-rate audio
  - Quad HD/4K/UHDTV display support
  - 1080p60 Stereoscopic 3D (Frame Sequential Format)
- HDMI® (With 4K, 3D, x.v.Color™ and Deep Color)
  - Max resolution: 4096x2160 @ 30 Hz
  - 1080p30 Stereoscopic 3D (Packed Frame Format)
  - Quad HD/4K/UHDTV video display support
- Dual-link DVI with HDCP
  - Max resolution: 2560x1600
- VGA
  - Max resolution: 2048x1536
Integrated HD audio controller
- Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
- Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats
AMD PowerPlay™ power management technology⁷
- Automatic power management with low power idle states
AMD PowerTune technology⁷
- Intelligent TDP management technology
- Dynamic clockspeed/performance enhancement for games
AMD ZeroCore Power technology⁷
- Ultra-low idle power when the system’s display is off
- Efficient low power mode for desktop work
- Secondary GPUs in an AMD CrossFire™ technology configuration power down when unneeded
AMD Catalyst™ graphics and HD video configuration software
- Software support for Windows® 7, Windows Vista® and Windows® XP.
- AMD Catalyst™ Control Center - AMD Catalyst™ software application and user interface for setup, configuration, and accessing features of AMD Radeon products.
- Unified Graphics display driver - AMD Catalyst™ software enabling other PC programs and devices to use advanced graphics, video, and features of AMD Radeon™ products.

Additional hardware (e.g. Blu-ray drive, HD or 10-bit monitor, TV tuner) and/or software (e.g. multimedia applications) are required for the full enablement of some features. Not all features may be supported on all components or systems - check with your component or system manufacturer for specific model capabilities and supported technologies.

In tests by AMD as of May 22, 2012 on single-GPU graphics cards, the AMD Radeon™ HD 8970 showed higher average performance than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 in the following games/apps: Formula 1 2010, Civilization V, StarCraft II, Just Cause 2, Unigine Heaven, Left 4 Dead 2, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, DiRT 3, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, Crysis Warhead, Metro 2033 (4xAA), and Hard Reset (MLAA). All applications were evaluated at 2560x1600 with 8xAA and 16xAF unless otherwise noted. System configuration: Intel® Core™ i7-3960X (3.33GHz), MSI X79A-GD65, 16GB DDR3-1600 and Windows® 7 x64. AMD Radeon™ HD 8970 evaluated with AMD Catalyst™ 8.973. NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680 evaluated with NVIDIA® ForceWare™ 301.10 WHQL. [GRDT-16]
AMD PowerPlay™, AMD PowerTune and AMD ZeroCore Power are technologies offered by certain AMD Radeon™ products, which are designed to intelligently manage GPU power consumption in response to certain GPU load conditions. Boost clockspeeds via AMD PowerTune (if applicable) may vary by application, system temperature and/or user system configuration. Not all products feature all technologies – check with your component or system manufacturer for specific model capabilities.
AMD App Acceleration is a set of technologies designed to improve video quality and enhance application performance. Full enablement of some features requires support for OpenCL™, DirectCompute or DirectX® Video Acceleration (DXVA). Not all products have all features and full enablement of some capabilities and may require complementary products
AMD Eyefinity technology works with games that support non-standard aspect ratios, which is required for panning across multiple displays. To enable more than two displays, additional panels with native DisplayPort™ connectors, and/or DisplayPort™ compliant active adapters to convert your monitor’s native input to your cards DisplayPort™ or Mini-DisplayPort™ connector(s), are required. Support for six simultaneous displays may require complementary products compatible with DisplayPort 1.2 Multi-Stream Transport. Maximum number of configured displays may vary - check with your component or system manufacturer for specific model capabilities and supported technologies. SLS (“Single Large Surface”) functionality requires an identical display resolution on all configured displays.
AMD HD3D is a technology designed to enable stereoscopic 3D support in games, movies and/or photos. Requires 3D stereo drivers, glasses, and display. Not all features may be supported on all components or systems – check with your component or system manufacturer for specific model capabilities and supported technologies. A list of supported stereoscopic 3D hardware is available at http://www.amd.com/HD3D.
AMD CrossFire™ technology requires an AMD CrossFire Ready motherboard, an AMD CrossFire™ Bridge Interconnect (for each additional graphics card) and may require a specialized power supply.
AMD PowerPlay™, AMD PowerTune and AMD ZeroCore Power are technologies offered by certain AMD Radeon™ products, which are designed to intelligently manage GPU power consumption in response to certain GPU load conditions. Not all products feature all technologies – check with your component or system manufacturer for specific model capabilities.
Minimum recommended system power supply wattage is based on the specific graphics card and the typical power requirements of other system components. Your system may require more or less power. OEM and other pre-assembled PCs may have different power requirements.

OpenCL and the OpenCL logo are trademarks of Apple Inc. used by permission by Khronos.