GeForce MX230 vs Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2

Place in performance ranking	815	607
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Value for money	no data	1.63
Architecture	RV6xx (2007−2010)	Pascal (2016−2021)
GPU code name	M88-XT CF	N17S-G0
Market segment	Laptop	Laptop
Release date	1 September 2008 (15 years ago)	20 February 2019 (5 years ago)
Current price	no data	$1221

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	640	256
Core clock speed	660 MHz	1519 MHz
Boost clock speed	no data	1531 MHz
Number of transistors	666 million	1,800 million
Manufacturing process technology	55 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	110 Watt	10 Watt
Texture fill rate	10.56	25.31
Floating-point performance	2x 422.4 gflops	no data

Size and compatibility

Information on Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 and GeForce MX230 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	medium sized
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors	no data	None

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	GDDR3	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	4 GB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	64 Bit
Memory clock speed	850 MHz	7000 MHz
Memory bandwidth	54.4 GB/s	48.06 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

Technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

Optimus

no data

API support

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

DirectX	10.1 (10_1)	12 (12_1)
Shader Model	4.1	6.4
OpenGL	3.3	4.6
OpenCL	N/A	1.2
Vulkan	N/A	1.2.131
CUDA	no data	+

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:

Full HD

9−10

−133%

21
+133%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

5−6

−60%

8−9
+60%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 −550%	13 +550%
Battlefield 5	3−4 −567%	20 +567%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	10−12 −45.5%	16−18 +45.5%
Cyberpunk 2077	5−6 −60%	8−9 +60%
Far Cry 5	2−3 −650%	15 +650%
Far Cry New Dawn	2−3 −650%	15 +650%
Forza Horizon 4	4−5 −425%	21 +425%
Hitman 3	4−5 −150%	10−11 +150%
Horizon Zero Dawn	3−4 −200%	9−10 +200%
Red Dead Redemption 2	5−6 −80%	9−10 +80%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	8−9 −25%	10 +25%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 −400%	10 +400%
Battlefield 5	3−4 −433%	16 +433%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	10−12 −45.5%	16−18 +45.5%
Cyberpunk 2077	5−6 −60%	8−9 +60%
Far Cry 5	2−3 −550%	13 +550%
Far Cry New Dawn	2−3 −550%	13 +550%
Forza Horizon 4	4−5 −300%	16 +300%
Hitman 3	4−5 −150%	10−11 +150%
Horizon Zero Dawn	3−4 −200%	9−10 +200%
Metro Exodus	3−4 −33.3%	4 +33.3%
Red Dead Redemption 2	5−6 −80%	9−10 +80%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	8−9 −12.5%	9 +12.5%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	6−7 −150%	15 +150%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 −200%	6 +200%
Battlefield 5	3−4 −300%	12 +300%
Cyberpunk 2077	5−6 −60%	8−9 +60%
Far Cry 5	2−3 −500%	12 +500%
Far Cry New Dawn	2−3 −500%	12 +500%
Forza Horizon 4	4−5 −200%	12 +200%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	6−7 −50%	9 +50%

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	4−5 −75%	7−8 +75%
Hitman 3	5−6 −60%	8−9 +60%
Horizon Zero Dawn	9−10 −22.2%	10−12 +22.2%
Metro Exodus	0−1	3−4
Red Dead Redemption 2	1−2 −200%	3−4 +200%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	6−7 −33.3%	8−9 +33.3%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Cyberpunk 2077	1−2 −100%	2−3 +100%
Far Cry 5	3−4 −133%	7−8 +133%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	2−3 −100%	4−5 +100%

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	2−3 −50%	3−4 +50%
Hitman 3	2−3 −150%	5−6 +150%
Horizon Zero Dawn	7−8 −14.3%	8−9 +14.3%
Red Dead Redemption 2	1−2 −100%	2−3 +100%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	1−2 −100%	2−3 +100%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	1−2 −100%	2−3 +100%
Far Cry 5	3−4 −66.7%	5−6 +66.7%
Far Cry New Dawn	6−7 −16.7%	7−8 +16.7%

This is how ATI Mobility HD 3870 X2 and GeForce MX230 compete in popular games:

GeForce MX230 is 133% faster than ATI Mobility HD 3870 X2 in 1080p

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

in Far Cry 5, with 1080p resolution and the Medium Preset, the GeForce MX230 is 650% faster than the ATI Mobility HD 3870 X2.

All in all, in popular games:

Without exception, GeForce MX230 surpassed ATI Mobility HD 3870 X2 in all 48 of our tests.

Advantages and disadvantages

Performance score	2.18	4.75
Recency	1 September 2008	20 February 2019
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	4 GB
Chip lithography	55 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	110 Watt	10 Watt