ATI Radeon HD 5950 vs GeForce GTX 280

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Primary details

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

Place in the ranking739not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.12no data
Power efficiency0.97no data
ArchitectureTesla 2.0 (2007−2013)TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code nameGT200Hemlock
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date16 June 2008 (16 years ago)no data
Launch price (MSRP)$649 no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

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 cores2401440
Core clock speed602 MHz725 MHz
Number of transistors1,400 million2,154 million
Manufacturing process technology65 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)236 Watt302 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature105 °Cno data
Texture fill rate48.1652.20
Floating-point processing power0.6221 TFLOPSno data
ROPs3232
TMUs8072

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).

InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16PCIe 2.0 x16
Length267 mm280 mm
Height4.376" (111 mm) (11.1 cm)no data
Width2-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
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 typeGDDR3GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount1 GB1 GB
Memory bus width512 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed1107 MHz4 GB/s
Memory bandwidth141.7 GB/s128.0 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 ConnectorsHDTVDual Link DVI2x DVI, 1x HDMI 1.3a, 1x DisplayPort 1.1
Multi monitor support+no data
HDMI-+
Maximum VGA resolution2048x1536no data
Audio input for HDMIS/PDIFno data

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
OpenGL2.14.4
OpenCL1.11.2
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA+-

Pros & cons summary


Chip lithography 65 nm 40 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 236 Watt 302 Watt

GTX 280 has 28% lower power consumption.

ATI HD 5950, on the other hand, has a 62.5% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between GeForce GTX 280 and Radeon HD 5950. 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 GTX 280
GeForce GTX 280
ATI Radeon HD 5950
Radeon HD 5950

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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3.5 107 votes

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3.3 23 votes

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Questions & comments

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