ATI Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition vs GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking110not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency8.23no data
ArchitectureMaxwell (2014−2017)TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code nameN16E-GXX SLICypress
Market segmentLaptopDesktop
Release date22 September 2015 (9 years ago)30 June 2010 (14 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)no data$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 cores40961600
Core clock speed1126 MHz850 MHz
Boost clock speed1228 MHzno data
Number of transistors10400 Million2,154 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)330 Watt228 Watt
Texture fill rateno data68.00
Floating-point processing powerno data2.72 TFLOPS
ROPsno data32
TMUsno data80

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
Interfaceno dataPCIe 2.0 x16
Lengthno data279 mm
Widthno data2-slot
Supplementary power connectorsno data2x 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 typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount2x 8 GB1 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed3500 MHz1195 MHz
Memory bandwidthno data153.0 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 data1x DVI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
G-SYNC support+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX12_111.2 (11_0)
Shader Modelno data5.0
OpenGLno data4.4
OpenCLno data1.2
Vulkan-N/A
CUDA+-

Pros & cons summary


Recency 22 September 2015 30 June 2010
Chip lithography 28 nm 40 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 330 Watt 228 Watt

GTX 980 SLI Mobile has an age advantage of 5 years, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

ATI HD 5870 Mac Edition, on the other hand, has 44.7% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile and Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile is a notebook card while Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition is a desktop one.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile
GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile
ATI Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition
Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


3.3 65 votes

Rate GeForce GTX 980 SLI Mobile on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
2.3 9 votes

Rate Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.