GeForce GTX 260 216 Rev. 2 vs ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2

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Primary details

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

Place in the ranking916not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.04no data
Power efficiency0.77no data
ArchitectureTeraScale (2005−2013)Tesla 2.0 (2007−2013)
GPU code nameR680GT200B
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date26 January 2008 (16 years ago)27 November 2008 (15 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$449 $299

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

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 cores320216
Core clock speed825 MHz576 MHz
Number of transistors666 million1,400 million
Manufacturing process technology55 nm55 nm
Power consumption (TDP)165 Watt171 Watt
Texture fill rate13.2041.47
Floating-point processing power0.528 TFLOPS0.5365 TFLOPS
ROPs1628
TMUs1672

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
Length267 mm267 mm
Width2-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin + 1x 8-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 typeGDDR3GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount512 MB896 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit448 Bit
Memory clock speed901 MHz999 MHz
Memory bandwidth57.66 GB/s111.9 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 S-Video2x DVI, 1x S-Video

API compatibility

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

DirectX10.1 (10_1)11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model4.14.0
OpenGL3.33.3
OpenCLN/A1.1
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA-1.3

Pros & cons summary


Recency 26 January 2008 27 November 2008
Maximum RAM amount 512 MB 896 MB
Power consumption (TDP) 165 Watt 171 Watt

ATI HD 3870 X2 has 3.6% lower power consumption.

GTX 260 216 Rev. 2, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 10 months, and a 75% higher maximum VRAM amount.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 3870 X2 and GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Rev. 2. 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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ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
Radeon HD 3870 X2
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Rev. 2
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Rev. 2

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Community ratings

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3.9 11 votes

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4.8 11 votes

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Questions & comments

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