GeForce4 MX 420 PCI vs ATI Radeon HD 4860

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)Celsius (1999−2005)
GPU code nameRV790NV17 A3
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date9 September 2009 (15 years ago)6 February 2002 (22 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 cores640no data
Core clock speed700 MHz250 MHz
Number of transistors959 million29 million
Manufacturing process technology55 nm150 nm
Power consumption (TDP)130 Wattno data
Texture fill rate22.401.000
Floating-point processing power0.896 gflopsno data

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 x16PCI
Width2-slot1-slot
Supplementary power connectors2x 6-pinNone

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 typeGDDR5SDR
Maximum RAM amount512 MB64 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit64 Bit
Memory clock speed3000 MHz166 MHz
Memory bandwidth96 GB/s1.328 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-Video1x VGA, 1x S-Video

API compatibility

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

DirectX10.1 (10_1)8.0
Shader Model4.1no data
OpenGL3.31.3
OpenCL1.1N/A
VulkanN/AN/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 9 September 2009 6 February 2002
Maximum RAM amount 512 MB 64 MB
Chip lithography 55 nm 150 nm

ATI HD 4860 has an age advantage of 7 years, a 700% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 172.7% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 4860 and GeForce4 MX 420 PCI. 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 4860
Radeon HD 4860
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420 PCI
GeForce4 MX 420 PCI

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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4.2 9 votes

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3 2 votes

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Questions & comments

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