GeForce 8600 GT Mac Edition vs ATI Radeon X1900 XTX

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
ArchitectureR500 (2005−2007)Tesla (2006−2010)
GPU code nameR580G84
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date24 January 2006 (18 years ago)17 April 2007 (17 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$399 $159

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 coresno data32
Core clock speed650 MHz600 MHz
Number of transistors384 million289 million
Manufacturing process technology90 nm80 nm
Power consumption (TDP)135 Watt47 Watt
Texture fill rate10.409.600
Floating-point processing powerno data0.0928 TFLOPS
ROPs168
TMUs1616

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 1.0 x16PCIe 1.0 x16
Length242 mm170 mm
Width2-slot1-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 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 typeGDDR3GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount512 MB128 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed775 MHz750 MHz
Memory bandwidth49.6 GB/s24 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-Video2x DVI

API compatibility

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

DirectX9.0c (9_3)11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model3.04.0
OpenGL2.1 (full) 3.0 (partial)3.3
OpenCLN/A1.1
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA-1.1

Pros & cons summary


Recency 24 January 2006 17 April 2007
Maximum RAM amount 512 MB 128 MB
Chip lithography 90 nm 80 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 135 Watt 47 Watt

ATI X1900 XTX has a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount.

8600 GT Mac Edition, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 1 year, a 12.5% more advanced lithography process, and 187.2% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon X1900 XTX and GeForce 8600 GT 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 X1900 XTX
Radeon X1900 XTX
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT Mac Edition
GeForce 8600 GT Mac Edition

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Community ratings

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3.4 9 votes

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Questions & comments

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