ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M

Place in performance ranking	705	815
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Value for money	0.34	no data
Architecture	Fermi (2010−2014)	RV6xx (2007−2010)
GPU code name	N11E-GS	M88-XT CF
Market segment	Laptop	Laptop
Release date	3 September 2010 (13 years old)	1 September 2008 (15 years old)
Current price	$88	no data

Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

Technical specs

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	192	640
Core clock speed	675 MHz	660 MHz
Number of transistors	1,170 million	666 million
Manufacturing process technology	40 nm	55 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	50 Watt	110 Watt
Texture fill rate	16.1 billion/sec	10.56
Floating-point performance	518.4 gflops	2x 422.4 gflops

Size and compatibility

Information on GeForce GTX 460M and Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For notebook video cards it's notebook size, connection slot and bus, if the video card is inserted into a slot instead of being soldered to the notebook motherboard.

Laptop size	large	large
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16
SLI options	+	no data

Memory

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 type	GDDR5	GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount	1536 MB	512 MB
Memory bus width	192 Bit	256 Bit
Memory clock speed	1250 MHz	850 MHz
Memory bandwidth	60.0 GB/s	54.4 GB/s
Shared memory	-	-

Video outputs and ports

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 Connectors

No outputs

API support

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

DirectX	12 API with Feature Level 12.1	10.1 (10_1)
Shader Model	5.1	4.1
OpenGL	4.5	3.3
OpenCL	1.1	N/A
Vulkan	N/A	N/A
CUDA	+	no data

Synthetic benchmark performance

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

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

GTX 460M 3.19
+46.3%

ATI Mobility HD 3870 X2 2.18

GeForce GTX 460M outperforms Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 by 46% based on our aggregated benchmark results.

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

GTX 460M 7507
+8.9%

ATI Mobility HD 3870 X2 6895

GeForce GTX 460M outperforms Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 by 9% in 3DMark Vantage Performance.

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

900p	30 +66.7%	18−21 −66.7%
Full HD	39 +62.5%	24−27 −62.5%

Performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

6−7
+20%

5−6

−20%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	5−6 +150%	2−3 −150%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	0−1	0−1
Battlefield 5	7−8 +133%	3−4 −133%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	12−14 +18.2%	10−12 −18.2%
Cyberpunk 2077	6−7 +20%	5−6 −20%
Far Cry 5	5−6 +150%	2−3 −150%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 +150%	2−3 −150%
Forza Horizon 4	9−10 +125%	4−5 −125%
Hitman 3	6−7 +50%	4−5 −50%
Horizon Zero Dawn	5−6 +66.7%	3−4 −66.7%
Red Dead Redemption 2	7−8 +40%	5−6 −40%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 +25%	8−9 −25%
Watch Dogs: Legion	2−3 +100%	1−2 −100%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	5−6 +150%	2−3 −150%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	0−1	0−1
Battlefield 5	7−8 +133%	3−4 −133%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	12−14 +18.2%	10−12 −18.2%
Cyberpunk 2077	6−7 +20%	5−6 −20%
Far Cry 5	5−6 +150%	2−3 −150%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 +150%	2−3 −150%
Forza Horizon 4	9−10 +125%	4−5 −125%
Hitman 3	6−7 +50%	4−5 −50%
Horizon Zero Dawn	5−6 +66.7%	3−4 −66.7%
Metro Exodus	4−5 +33.3%	3−4 −33.3%
Red Dead Redemption 2	7−8 +40%	5−6 −40%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 +25%	8−9 −25%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	7−8 +16.7%	6−7 −16.7%
Watch Dogs: Legion	2−3 +100%	1−2 −100%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	5−6 +150%	2−3 −150%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	0−1	0−1
Battlefield 5	7−8 +133%	3−4 −133%
Cyberpunk 2077	6−7 +20%	5−6 −20%
Far Cry 5	5−6 +150%	2−3 −150%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 +150%	2−3 −150%
Forza Horizon 4	9−10 +125%	4−5 −125%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	7−8 +16.7%	6−7 −16.7%
Watch Dogs: Legion	2−3 +100%	1−2 −100%

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	6−7 +50%	4−5 −50%
Hitman 3	6−7 +20%	5−6 −20%
Horizon Zero Dawn	10−11 +11.1%	9−10 −11.1%
Metro Exodus	1−2	0−1
Red Dead Redemption 2	2−3 +100%	1−2 −100%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	6−7 +0%	6−7 +0%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	1−2	0−1
Cyberpunk 2077	2−3 +100%	1−2 −100%
Far Cry 5	5−6 +66.7%	3−4 −66.7%
Forza Horizon 4	2−3 +100%	1−2 −100%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	3−4 +50%	2−3 −50%

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	3−4 +50%	2−3 −50%
Hitman 3	3−4 +50%	2−3 −50%
Horizon Zero Dawn	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Red Dead Redemption 2	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	0−1	0−1

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	0−1	0−1
Far Cry 5	4−5 +33.3%	3−4 −33.3%
Far Cry New Dawn	6−7 +0%	6−7 +0%

This is how GTX 460M and ATI Mobility HD 3870 X2 compete in popular games:

900p resolution:

GTX 460M is 66.7% faster than ATI Mobility HD 3870 X2

1080p resolution:

GTX 460M is 62.5% faster than ATI Mobility HD 3870 X2

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, with 1080p resolution and the Medium Preset, the GTX 460M is 150% faster than the ATI Mobility HD 3870 X2.

All in all, in popular games:

GTX 460M is ahead in 42 tests (88%)
there's a draw in 6 tests (13%)

Advantages and disadvantages

Performance score	3.19	2.18
Recency	3 September 2010	1 September 2008
Maximum RAM amount	1536 MB	512 MB
Chip lithography	40 nm	55 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	50 Watt	110 Watt