ATI Radeon X1900 XT vs ATI HD 4870 Mac Edition

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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)R500 (2005−2007)
GPU code nameRV770R580
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date6 January 2009 (15 years ago)24 January 2006 (18 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)no data$299

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 cores800no data
Core clock speed750 MHz625 MHz
Number of transistors956 million384 million
Manufacturing process technology55 nm90 nm
Power consumption (TDP)150 Watt100 Watt
Texture fill rate30.0010.00
Floating-point processing power1.2 TFLOPSno data
ROPs1616
TMUs4016

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
Length250 mm242 mm
Width2-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectors2x 6-pin1x 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 typeGDDR5GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount512 MB256 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed850 MHz725 MHz
Memory bandwidth108.8 GB/s46.4 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 mini-DisplayPort2x DVI, 1x S-Video

API compatibility

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

DirectX10.1 (10_1)9.0c (9_3)
Shader Model4.13.0
OpenGL3.32.1 (full) 3.0 (partial)
OpenCL1.1N/A
VulkanN/AN/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 6 January 2009 24 January 2006
Maximum RAM amount 512 MB 256 MB
Chip lithography 55 nm 90 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 150 Watt 100 Watt

ATI HD 4870 Mac Edition has an age advantage of 2 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 63.6% more advanced lithography process.

ATI X1900 XT, on the other hand, has 50% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition and Radeon X1900 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 4870 Mac Edition
Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition
ATI Radeon X1900 XT
Radeon X1900 XT

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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2.4 32 votes

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Questions & comments

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