GeForce 8600 GTS Mac Edition vs ATI Radeon HD 5850

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking614not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.59no data
Power efficiency2.37no data
ArchitectureTeraScale 2 (2009−2015)Tesla (2006−2010)
GPU code nameCypressG84
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date30 September 2009 (15 years ago)21 September 2007 (17 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$299 no data

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 cores144032
Core clock speed725 MHz675 MHz
Number of transistors2,154 million289 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm80 nm
Power consumption (TDP)151 Watt75 Watt
Texture fill rate52.2010.80
Floating-point processing power2.088 TFLOPS0.0928 TFLOPS
ROPs328
TMUs7216

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
Length241 mmno data
Width2-slot1-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 amount1 GB512 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1000 MHz1008 MHz
Memory bandwidth128.0 GB/s32.26 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 HDMI, 1x DisplayPort2x DVI
HDMI+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.2 (11_0)11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model5.04.0
OpenGL4.43.3
OpenCL1.21.1
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA-1.1

Pros & cons summary


Recency 30 September 2009 21 September 2007
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 512 MB
Chip lithography 40 nm 80 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 151 Watt 75 Watt

ATI HD 5850 has an age advantage of 2 years, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 100% more advanced lithography process.

8600 GTS Mac Edition, on the other hand, has 101.3% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 5850 and GeForce 8600 GTS Mac Edition. 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 5850
Radeon HD 5850
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS Mac Edition
GeForce 8600 GTS Mac Edition

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Community ratings

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