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ATI Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition

ATI Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition: A Retrospective of a GPU for Enthusiasts and Collectors

Introduction

The ATI Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition, released in 2009, became one of the few specialized solutions for Apple computers based on the R700 architecture. Despite its age, it still piques the interest of collectors and users of older systems. In this article, we'll explore the key features of the card, its performance, and its relevance in 2025.

1. Architecture and Key Features

R700 Architecture

The HD 4870 Mac Edition is built on the R700 architecture, which at the time was considered groundbreaking due to its 55nm manufacturing process. This allowed for the integration of 800 stream processors and 40 texture units on a single die.

Technologies and Functions

The card supported DirectX 10.1, OpenGL 3.3, and OpenCL 1.0, making it compatible with professional macOS applications. However, modern features like ray tracing (RTX), DLSS, or FidelityFX were absent—they emerged a decade later. Among its unique features was GDDR5 memory with doubled data transfer rates, which was innovative for 2009.

2. Memory: The Foundation of Performance

Type and Capacity

The HD 4870 Mac Edition came equipped with 512 MB of GDDR5 memory with a 256-bit bus. Its bandwidth reached 115.2 GB/s (3.6 Gbps × 256 bits / 8), which was an impressive figure for the DirectX 10 era.

Impact on Performance

The high bandwidth allowed the card to manage high-resolution textures in games like Crysis or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. However, this amount is insufficient for modern tasks such as 4K video rendering.

3. Gaming Performance

FPS Examples (at Release Time)

- Crysis (1680×1050, High): 25–30 FPS;

- Left 4 Dead 2 (1920×1200, Ultra): 45–50 FPS;

- World of Warcraft (1920×1200, High): 60+ FPS.

Resolution Support

The card was optimized for 1080p and 1440p, but even in older projects at 4K (3840×2160), it showed less than 15 FPS due to limited memory.

Ray Tracing

The HD 4870 Mac Edition does not support hardware ray tracing—this technology only emerged with NVIDIA's RTX 20 series in 2018.

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing and 3D Modeling

With support for OpenCL, the card could accelerate rendering in Final Cut Pro 7 or Adobe Premiere CS4. For 3D modeling in Autodesk Maya 2010, it was suitable at a basic level, but serious projects required more powerful solutions.

Scientific Calculations

The computational performance (around 1.2 TFLOPs) is too low for modern tasks in machine learning or simulations.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP and PSU Requirements

The card has a TDP of 150 W, which necessitated a power supply of at least 450 W for stable operation (considering other components).

Cooling

The standard cooling system consists of a single-slot heatsink with a turbine fan. This was sufficient for the 2009 Mac Pro, but overheating could occur in compact cases. Regular dust cleaning and thermal paste replacement are recommended.

6. Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285

The main competitor in 2009, the GTX 285, offered similar gaming performance but fell short in OpenCL tasks. Its TDP was higher (183 W), making the HD 4870 more energy-efficient.

Modern Analogues

In 2025, the HD 4870 Mac Edition can be compared to budget GPUs like the AMD Radeon RX 6400 ($100), which is ten times more powerful and supports all current technologies.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply

A minimum of 450 W with a 6-pin PCIe connector is required. The stock PSU of 600 W is suitable for the Mac Pro 2009.

Compatibility

The card only works in Mac Pro models from 2009 to 2012 with macOS Snow Leopard (10.6) or earlier. Modified drivers are needed for Windows PCs.

Drivers

Official support ceased in 2015. For macOS High Sierra and later, third-party patches will have to be used.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- High performance for its time;

- Full compatibility with old Mac Pros;

- Reliable construction (no chip degradation issues).

Cons:

- No support for DirectX 12 and modern APIs;

- Limited memory capacity;

- High power consumption by modern standards.

9. Final Conclusion

In 2025, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition is a relic for:

- Collectors assembling retro hardware;

- Owners of old Mac Pros wanting to restore system functionality;

- Enthusiasts experimenting with vintage gaming.

It is unsuitable for modern tasks, but as a part of computer history, it deserves attention. If you are looking for a GPU for everyday use, consider budget models from AMD or NVIDIA from the 2020s—they offer better performance, energy efficiency, and support for current technologies.

Note: New units of the HD 4870 Mac Edition have not been sold since 2012. On the secondary market, prices range from $50 to $150 depending on condition.

Basic

Label Name

ATI

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

January 2009

Model Name

Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition

Generation

Radeon R700

Bus Interface

PCIe 2.0 x16

Transistors

956 million

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

55 nm

Architecture

TeraScale

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

512MB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

256bit

Memory Clock

850MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

108.8 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

12.00 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

30.00 GTexel/s

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

240.0 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

1.224 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

800

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

256KB

TDP

150W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

N/A

OpenCL Version

1.1

OpenGL

3.3

DirectX

10.1 (10_1)

Power Connectors

2x 6-pin

Shader Model

4.1

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

450W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

1.224 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon E9173 PCIe

1.273 +4%

FirePro W4000

1.242 +1.5%

Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition

1.224

GeForce GTX 590

1.219 -0.4%

FireStream 9270

1.176 -3.9%