ATI Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition vs GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition

Primary details

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

Place in the rankingnot ratednot rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
ArchitectureKepler (2012−2018)TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code nameGK104Cypress
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date3 April 2013 (11 years ago)30 June 2010 (14 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$599 $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 cores15361600
Core clock speed1006 MHz850 MHz
Boost clock speed1058 MHzno data
Number of transistors3,540 million2,154 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)195 Watt228 Watt
Texture fill rate135.468.00
Floating-point processing power3.25 TFLOPS2.72 TFLOPS
ROPs3232
TMUs12880

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
Length254 mm279 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 typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount2 GB1 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed1502 MHz1195 MHz
Memory bandwidth192.3 GB/s153.0 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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort1x DVI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
HDMI+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX12 (11_0)11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model5.15.0
OpenGL4.64.4
OpenCL1.21.2
Vulkan1.1.126N/A
CUDA3.0-

Pros & cons summary


Recency 3 April 2013 30 June 2010
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 1 GB
Chip lithography 28 nm 40 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 195 Watt 228 Watt

GTX 680 Mac Edition has an age advantage of 2 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 42.9% more advanced lithography process, and 16.9% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition 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.

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition
GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition
ATI Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition
Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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3.4 5 votes

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2.3 9 votes

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Questions & comments

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