Radeon HD 6870M vs GeForce 9600M GT

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking1278not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency1.07no data
ArchitectureTesla (2006−2010)TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code nameG96CGranville
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date4 June 2008 (16 years ago)4 January 2011 (13 years ago)

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 cores32800
Core clock speed120 MHz675 MHz
Number of transistors314 million1,040 million
Manufacturing process technology55 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)23 Watt50 Watt
Texture fill rate8.00027.00
Floating-point processing power0.08 TFLOPS1.08 TFLOPS
ROPs816
TMUs1640

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).

Laptop sizemedium sizedlarge
InterfaceMXM-IIMXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectorsNoneno data

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 typeGDDR3GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount512 MB1 GB
Memory bus width128 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed800 MHz1000 MHz
Memory bandwidth25.6 GB/s64 GB/s
Shared memory--

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 ConnectorsNo outputsNo outputs

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.1 (10_0)11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model4.05.0
OpenGL3.34.4
OpenCL1.11.2
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA+-

Pros & cons summary


Recency 4 June 2008 4 January 2011
Maximum RAM amount 512 MB 1 GB
Chip lithography 55 nm 40 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 23 Watt 50 Watt

9600M GT has 117.4% lower power consumption.

HD 6870M, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 2 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 37.5% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between GeForce 9600M GT and Radeon HD 6870M. We've got no test results to judge.


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

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NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
GeForce 9600M GT
AMD Radeon HD 6870M
Radeon HD 6870M

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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3.6 98 votes

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4 4 votes

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Questions & comments

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