ATI Radeon 8500 XT vs ATI 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)Rage 7 (2001−2006)
GPU code nameRV790R250
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date9 September 2009 (15 years ago)1 June 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 MHz300 MHz
Number of transistors959 million60 million
Manufacturing process technology55 nm150 nm
Power consumption (TDP)130 Watt25 Watt
Texture fill rate22.402.400
Floating-point processing power0.896 TFLOPSno data
ROPs164
TMUs328

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 x16AGP 4x
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 typeGDDR5DDR
Maximum RAM amount512 MB128 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed750 MHz300 MHz
Memory bandwidth96 GB/s9.6 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 DVI, 1x VGA, 1x S-Video

API compatibility

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

DirectX10.1 (10_1)8.1
Shader Model4.1no data
OpenGL3.31.4
OpenCL1.1N/A
VulkanN/AN/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 9 September 2009 1 June 2002
Maximum RAM amount 512 MB 128 MB
Chip lithography 55 nm 150 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 130 Watt 25 Watt

ATI HD 4860 has an age advantage of 7 years, a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 172.7% more advanced lithography process.

ATI 8500 XT, on the other hand, has 420% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 4860 and Radeon 8500 XT. 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
ATI Radeon 8500 XT
Radeon 8500 XT

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Community ratings

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