ATI Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition vs GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
Contents
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 1519 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Power efficiency | 0.13 | no data |
| Architecture | Rankine (2003−2005) | TeraScale 2 (2009−2015) |
| GPU code name | NV35 | Cypress |
| Market segment | Desktop | Desktop |
| Release date | 23 October 2003 (22 years ago) | 30 June 2010 (15 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $499 | $479 |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
The higher the ratio, the better. We use the manufacturer's recommended prices.
Performance to price scatter graph
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 | no data | 1600 |
| Core clock speed | 450 MHz | 850 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 135 million | 2,154 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 130 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 59 Watt | 228 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 3.600 | 68.00 |
| Floating-point processing power | no data | 2.72 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 4 | 32 |
| TMUs | 8 | 80 |
| L1 Cache | no data | 160 KB |
| L2 Cache | no data | 512 KB |
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 | AGP 8x | PCIe 2.0 x16 |
| Length | 218 mm | 279 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x Molex | 2x 6-pin |
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 | DDR | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 256 MB | 1 GB |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 425 MHz | 1195 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 27.2 GB/s | 153.0 GB/s |
Connectivity and outputs
This section shows the types and number of video connectors on each GPU. The data applies specifically to desktop reference models (for example, NVIDIA’s Founders Edition). OEM partners often modify both the number and types of ports. On notebook GPUs, video‐output options are determined by the laptop’s design rather than the graphics chip itself.
| Display Connectors | 1x DVI, 1x VGA, 1x S-Video | 1x DVI, 2x mini-DisplayPort |
API and SDK support
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 9.0a | 11.2 (11_0) |
| Shader Model | no data | 5.0 |
| OpenGL | 1.5 (2.1) | 4.4 |
| OpenCL | N/A | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | N/A | N/A |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 23 October 2003 | 30 June 2010 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 256 MB | 1 GB |
| Chip lithography | 130 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 59 Watt | 228 Watt |
FX 5900 Ultra has 286% lower power consumption.
ATI HD 5870 Mac Edition, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 6 years, a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 225% more advanced lithography process.
We couldn't decide between GeForce FX 5900 Ultra and Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition. We've got no test results to judge.
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