GeForce FX 5900 vs 8600 GT

Place in the ranking	1310	1462
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Power efficiency	0.47	no data
Architecture	Tesla (2006−2010)	Rankine (2003−2005)
GPU code name	G84	NV35
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	17 April 2007 (17 years ago)	12 May 2003 (21 year ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$159	$399

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

8600 GT and FX 5900 have a nearly equal value for money.

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	32	no data
Core clock speed	540 MHz	400 MHz
Number of transistors	289 million	135 million
Manufacturing process technology	80 nm	130 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	47 Watt	no data
Texture fill rate	8.640	3.200
Floating-point processing power	0.07616 TFLOPS	no data
ROPs	8	4
TMUs	16	8

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Interface	PCIe 1.0 x16	AGP 8x
Length	170 mm	218 mm
Width	1-slot	1-slot
Supplementary power connectors	None	1x Molex
SLI options	+	-

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR3	DDR
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	128 MB
Standard memory config per GPU	256 MB	no data
Memory bus width	128 Bit	256 Bit
Memory clock speed	700 MHz	425 MHz
Memory bandwidth	22.4 GB/s	27.2 GB/s

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors

2x DVI, 1x S-Video

1x DVI, 1x VGA, 1x S-Video

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	11.1 (10_0)	9.0a
Shader Model	4.0	no data
OpenGL	2.1	1.5 (2.1)
OpenCL	1.1	N/A
Vulkan	N/A	N/A
CUDA	1.1	-

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

8600 GT 0.32
+256%

FX 5900 0.09

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

8600 GT 123
+262%

FX 5900 34

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	0.32	0.09
Recency	17 April 2007	12 May 2003
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	128 MB
Chip lithography	80 nm	130 nm

8600 GT has a 255.6% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 3 years, a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 62.5% more advanced lithography process.

The GeForce 8600 GT is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce FX 5900 in performance tests.

Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.