ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac Edition vs Quadro NVS 135M

#ad 
Buy on Amazon
VS

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking1434not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency0.89no data
ArchitectureTesla (2006−2010)TeraScale (2005−2013)
GPU code nameG86RV670
Market segmentMobile workstationDesktop
Release date9 May 2007 (17 years ago)12 June 2008 (16 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 cores16320
Core clock speed400 MHz777 MHz
Number of transistors210 million666 million
Manufacturing process technology80 nm55 nm
Power consumption (TDP)10 Watt106 Watt
Texture fill rate3.20012.43
Floating-point processing power0.0256 TFLOPS0.4973 TFLOPS
ROPs416
TMUs816

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
Lengthno data241 mm
Widthno data1-slot
Supplementary power connectorsno data1x 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 typeGDDR3GDDR4
Maximum RAM amount256 MB512 MB
Memory bus width64 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed594 MHz1126 MHz
Memory bandwidth9.504 GB/s72.06 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 outputs2x DVI, 1x S-Video

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.1 (10_0)10.1 (10_1)
Shader Model4.04.1
OpenGL3.33.3
OpenCL1.1N/A
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA1.1-

Pros & cons summary


Recency 9 May 2007 12 June 2008
Maximum RAM amount 256 MB 512 MB
Chip lithography 80 nm 55 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 10 Watt 106 Watt

NVS 135M has 960% lower power consumption.

ATI HD 3870 Mac Edition, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 1 year, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 45.5% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between Quadro NVS 135M and Radeon HD 3870 Mac Edition. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Quadro NVS 135M is a mobile workstation card while Radeon HD 3870 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 Quadro NVS 135M
Quadro NVS 135M
ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac Edition
Radeon HD 3870 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.


2.7 20 votes

Rate Quadro NVS 135M on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
3 1 vote

Rate Radeon HD 3870 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.