ATI Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition vs GeForce 6800 Ultra
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | not rated | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Architecture | Curie (2003−2013) | TeraScale 2 (2009−2015) |
| GPU code name | NV45 | Cypress |
| Market segment | Desktop | Desktop |
| Release date | 26 July 2004 (20 years ago) | 30 June 2010 (14 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $499 | $479 |
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 | 425 MHz | 850 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 222 million | 2,154 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 130 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 81 Watt | 228 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 6.800 | 68.00 |
| Floating-point processing power | no data | 2.72 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 16 | 32 |
| TMUs | 16 | 80 |
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 | PCIe 2.0 x16 |
| Length | 197 mm | 279 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pin | 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 | GDDR3 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 256 MB | 1 GB |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 550 MHz | 1195 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 35.2 GB/s | 153.0 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 Connectors | 2x DVI, 1x S-Video | 1x DVI, 2x mini-DisplayPort |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 9.0c (9_3) | 11.2 (11_0) |
| Shader Model | 3.0 | 5.0 |
| OpenGL | 2.1 | 4.4 |
| OpenCL | N/A | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | N/A | N/A |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 26 July 2004 | 30 June 2010 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 256 MB | 1 GB |
| Chip lithography | 130 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 81 Watt | 228 Watt |
6800 Ultra has 181.5% lower power consumption.
ATI HD 5870 Mac Edition, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 5 years, a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 225% more advanced lithography process.
We couldn't decide between GeForce 6800 Ultra and Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition. 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.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
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