GeForce GTX 280M vs ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850 X2
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | not rated | 980 |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Power efficiency | no data | 1.36 |
| Architecture | TeraScale (2005−2013) | Tesla (2006−2010) |
| GPU code name | M88 | G92 |
| Market segment | Laptop | Laptop |
| Release date | 4 June 2008 (16 years ago) | 3 March 2009 (15 years ago) |
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 cores | 320 | 128 |
| Core clock speed | 580 MHz | 585 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 666 million | 754 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 55 nm | 65 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 70 Watt | 75 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 9.280 | 37.44 |
| Floating-point processing power | 0.3712 TFLOPS | 0.3745 TFLOPS |
| Gigaflops | no data | 562 |
| ROPs | 16 | 16 |
| TMUs | 16 | 64 |
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).
| Laptop size | large | large |
| Bus support | no data | PCI-E 2.0 |
| Interface | PCIe 2.0 x16 | MXM-IV |
| SLI options | - | + |
| MXM Type | no data | MXM 3.0 Type-B |
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 type | GDDR3 | GDDR3 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 750 MHz | Up to 950 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 48 GB/s | 61 GB/s |
| Shared memory | - | - |
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 Connectors | No outputs | HDMIDual Link DVISingle Link DVIDisplayPortLVDSVGA |
| HDMI | - | + |
| Maximum VGA resolution | no data | 2048x1536 |
| Audio input for HDMI | no data | S/PDIF |
Supported technologies
Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.
| Power management | no data | 8.0 |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 10.1 (10_1) | 11.1 (10_0) |
| Shader Model | 4.1 | 4.0 |
| OpenGL | 3.3 | 2.1 |
| OpenCL | N/A | 1.1 |
| Vulkan | N/A | N/A |
| CUDA | - | + |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 4 June 2008 | 3 March 2009 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Chip lithography | 55 nm | 65 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 70 Watt | 75 Watt |
ATI Mobility HD 3850 X2 has a 18.2% more advanced lithography process, and 7.1% lower power consumption.
GTX 280M, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 8 months, and a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount.
We couldn't decide between Mobility Radeon HD 3850 X2 and GeForce GTX 280M. 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.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
