GeForce GTX 260 216 vs ATI Radeon HD 4870

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Primary details

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

Place in the ranking720not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.31no data
Power efficiency1.63no data
ArchitectureTeraScale (2005−2013)Tesla 2.0 (2007−2013)
GPU code nameRV770GT200
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date25 June 2008 (16 years ago)16 September 2008 (16 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$299 $299

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 cores800216
Core clock speed750 MHz576 MHz
Number of transistors956 million1,400 million
Manufacturing process technology55 nm65 nm
Power consumption (TDP)150 Watt182 Watt
Texture fill rate30.0041.47
Floating-point processing power1.2 TFLOPS0.5365 TFLOPS
ROPs1628
TMUs4072

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
Length250 mm267 mm
Width2-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectors2x 6-pin2x 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 typeGDDR5GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount1 GB896 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit448 Bit
Memory clock speed900 MHz999 MHz
Memory bandwidth115.2 GB/s111.9 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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x S-Video2x DVI, 1x S-Video

API compatibility

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

DirectX10.1 (10_1)11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model4.14.0
OpenGL3.33.3
OpenCL1.11.1
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA-1.3

Pros & cons summary


Recency 25 June 2008 16 September 2008
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 896 MB
Chip lithography 55 nm 65 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 150 Watt 182 Watt

ATI HD 4870 has a 14.3% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 18.2% more advanced lithography process, and 21.3% lower power consumption.

GTX 260 216, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 2 months.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 4870 and GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. 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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ATI Radeon HD 4870
Radeon HD 4870
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216

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Community ratings

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3.3 227 votes

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4.1 14 votes

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Questions & comments

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