Quadro NVS 280 PCIe vs ATI Radeon HD 3470

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
ArchitectureTeraScale (2005−2013)Rankine (2003−2005)
GPU code nameRV620NV37
Market segmentDesktopWorkstation
Release date23 January 2008 (16 years ago)25 May 2004 (20 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 cores40no data
Core clock speed800 MHz275 MHz
Number of transistors181 million45 million
Manufacturing process technology55 nm150 nm
Power consumption (TDP)30 Watt13 Watt
Texture fill rate3.2001.100
Floating-point processing power0.064 TFLOPSno data
ROPs44
TMUs44

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 1.0 x16
Length168 mm168 mm
Width1-slot1-slot
Supplementary power connectorsNoneNone

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 typeGDDR3DDR
Maximum RAM amount256 MB64 MB
Memory bus width64 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed950 MHz250 MHz
Memory bandwidth15.2 GB/s8 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 Connectors1x DVI, 1x VGA, 1x S-Video1x DMS-59

API compatibility

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

DirectX10.1 (10_1)9.0a
Shader Model4.1no data
OpenGL3.31.5 (2.1)
OpenCLN/AN/A
VulkanN/AN/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 23 January 2008 25 May 2004
Maximum RAM amount 256 MB 64 MB
Chip lithography 55 nm 150 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 30 Watt 13 Watt

ATI HD 3470 has an age advantage of 3 years, a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 172.7% more advanced lithography process.

NVS 280 PCIe, on the other hand, has 130.8% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 3470 and Quadro NVS 280 PCIe. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Radeon HD 3470 is a desktop card while Quadro NVS 280 PCIe is a workstation one.


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

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ATI Radeon HD 3470
Radeon HD 3470
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 PCIe
Quadro NVS 280 PCIe

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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