Radeon HD 6490M Mac Edition vs GeForce GT 540M

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Primary details

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

Place in the ranking1042not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency2.43no data
ArchitectureFermi (2010−2014)TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code nameGF108Seymour
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date5 January 2011 (13 years ago)2 May 2011 (13 years ago)

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 cores96160
Core clock speed672 MHz750 MHz
Number of transistors585 million370 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)35 Wattno data
Texture fill rate10.756.000
Floating-point processing power0.258 TFLOPS0.24 TFLOPS
ROPs44
TMUs168

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).

Laptop sizelargeno data
InterfaceMXM-A (3.0)PCIe 2.0 x16

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 typeDDR3GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount2 GB256 MB
Memory bus width128 Bit64 Bit
Memory clock speed900 MHz794 MHz
Memory bandwidth28.8 GB/s25.41 GB/s
Shared memory--

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 ConnectorsNo outputsNo outputs

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

3D Blu-Ray+-
3D Gaming+-
Optimus+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX12 API11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model5.15.0
OpenGL4.54.4
OpenCL1.11.2
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA+-

Pros & cons summary


Recency 5 January 2011 2 May 2011
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 256 MB

GT 540M has a 700% higher maximum VRAM amount.

HD 6490M Mac Edition, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 3 months.

We couldn't decide between GeForce GT 540M and Radeon HD 6490M 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.

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NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M
GeForce GT 540M
AMD Radeon HD 6490M Mac Edition
Radeon HD 6490M Mac Edition

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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