Survival curves of Chinese hamster V79 cells exposed to accelerated carbon ions with linear energy transfers of 125.5, 200 and 700 keV/μm were measured, respectively. Inactivation cross sections corresponding to the irradiation above were deduced from the V79 cell survival curves. They are 7.86±0.17, 10.44±1.11 and 32.32±3.58μm² in turn. With the surviving response of V79 cells to ⁶⁰Co γ-rays as a reference value, relative biological effectiveness at 10%, 20%, 50% and 80% survival levels were given for the accelerated carbon ions. The results showed that carbon ions with LET of 125.5 keV/μm had a higher value of RBE at all the four survival levels than the carbon ions with other LETs. It was prompted that the maximum value of RBE for the V79 cell surviving as the biological endpoint emerged at the LET below 200 keV/μm for carbon ions.