ATI Radeon 9600 XT vs HD 7870

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Primary details

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

Place in the ranking400not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation2.91no data
Power efficiency4.96no data
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2011−2020)Rage 9 (2003−2006)
GPU code namePitcairnRV360
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date5 March 2012 (12 years ago)1 October 2003 (21 year ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$349 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 cores1280no data
Core clock speed1000 MHz500 MHz
Number of transistors2,800 million60 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm130 nm
Power consumption (TDP)175 Watt22 Watt
Texture fill rate80.002.000
Floating-point processing power2.56 TFLOPSno data
ROPs324
TMUs804

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 3.0 x16AGP 8x
Length241 mmno data
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 amount2 GB128 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1200 MHz300 MHz
Memory bandwidth153.6 GB/s9.6 GB/s
Shared memory-no data

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 HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort1x DVI, 1x VGA, 1x S-Video
Eyefinity+-
HDMI+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX12 (11_1)9.0 (9_0)
Shader Model5.1no data
OpenGL4.62.0
OpenCL1.2N/A
Vulkan1.2.131N/A

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.



Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

HD 7870 4635
+13143%
ATI 9600 XT 35

Pros & cons summary


Recency 5 March 2012 1 October 2003
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 128 MB
Chip lithography 28 nm 130 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 175 Watt 22 Watt

HD 7870 has an age advantage of 8 years, a 1500% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 364.3% more advanced lithography process.

ATI 9600 XT, on the other hand, has 695.5% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 7870 and Radeon 9600 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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AMD Radeon HD 7870
Radeon HD 7870
ATI Radeon 9600 XT
Radeon 9600 XT

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


3.7 638 votes

Rate Radeon HD 7870 on a scale of 1 to 5:

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4.2 30 votes

Rate Radeon 9600 XT on a scale of 1 to 5:

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Questions & comments

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