Radeon HD 6870 1600SP Edition vs GeForce 8600 GT
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 1309 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Power efficiency | 0.47 | no data |
| Architecture | Tesla (2006−2010) | TeraScale 2 (2009−2015) |
| GPU code name | G84 | Cypress |
| Market segment | Desktop | Desktop |
| Release date | 17 April 2007 (17 years ago) | 14 January 2013 (11 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $159 | no data |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.
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 | 32 | 1600 |
| Core clock speed | 540 MHz | 850 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 289 million | 2,154 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 80 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 47 Watt | 175 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 8.640 | 68.00 |
| Floating-point processing power | 0.07616 TFLOPS | 2.72 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 8 | 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 | 170 mm | 282 mm |
| Width | 1-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | None | 2x 6-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 type | GDDR3 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Standard memory config per GPU | 256 MB | no data |
| Memory bus width | 128 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 700 MHz | 1050 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 22.4 GB/s | 134.4 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 | 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort |
| HDMI | - | + |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 11.1 (10_0) | 11.2 (11_0) |
| Shader Model | 4.0 | 5.0 |
| OpenGL | 2.1 | 4.4 |
| OpenCL | 1.1 | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | N/A | N/A |
| CUDA | 1.1 | - |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 17 April 2007 | 14 January 2013 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Chip lithography | 80 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 47 Watt | 175 Watt |
8600 GT has 272.3% lower power consumption.
HD 6870 1600SP Edition, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 5 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 100% more advanced lithography process.
We couldn't decide between GeForce 8600 GT and Radeon HD 6870 1600SP 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
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
