Mobility Radeon HD 4870 vs HD 5850

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Aggregate performance score

We've compared Radeon HD 5850 with Mobility Radeon HD 4870, including specs and performance data.

ATI HD 5850
2009
1 GB GDDR5, 151 Watt
5.15
+149%

ATI HD 5850 outperforms ATI Mobility HD 4870 by a whopping 149% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in performance ranking595841
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.58no data
ArchitectureTerascale 2 (2009−2015)Terascale 1 (2008−2010)
GPU code nameCypressM98-XT
Market segmentDesktopLaptop
Release date30 September 2009 (14 years ago)9 January 2009 (15 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$299 no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

Detailed specifications

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 cores1440800
Core clock speed725 MHz550 MHz
Number of transistors2,154 million956 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm55 nm
Power consumption (TDP)151 Wattno data
Texture fill rate52.2022.00
Floating-point performance2,088.0 gflops880.0 gflops
Floating-point performance2.088 gflops0.88 gflops

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 sizeno datalarge
InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16PCIe 2.0 x16
Length241 mmno data
Width2-slotno data
Supplementary power connectors2x 6-pinno data

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 typeGDDR5GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount1 GB1 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed2000 MHz888 MHz
Memory bandwidth128.0 GB/s56.83 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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPortNo outputs
HDMI+-

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.2 (11_0)10.1 (10_1)
Shader Model5.04.1
OpenGL4.43.3
OpenCL1.21.1
VulkanN/AN/A

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.

ATI HD 5850 5.15
+149%
ATI Mobility HD 4870 2.07

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.

ATI HD 5850 13267
+100%
ATI Mobility HD 4870 6631

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:

900p59
+181%
21−24
−181%
Full HD58
+123%
26
−123%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 9−10
+80%
5−6
−80%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 14−16
+100%
7−8
−100%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 5−6
+150%
2−3
−150%
Battlefield 5 12−14
+550%
2−3
−550%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10−12
+120%
5−6
−120%
Cyberpunk 2077 9−10
+80%
5−6
−80%
Far Cry 5 10−12
+267%
3−4
−267%
Far Cry New Dawn 14−16
+180%
5−6
−180%
Forza Horizon 4 30−35
+267%
9−10
−267%
Hitman 3 10−12
+57.1%
7−8
−57.1%
Horizon Zero Dawn 30−35
+83.3%
18−20
−83.3%
Metro Exodus 12−14
+200%
4−5
−200%
Red Dead Redemption 2 14−16
+250%
4−5
−250%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 18−20
+80%
10−11
−80%
Watch Dogs: Legion 45−50
+30.6%
35−40
−30.6%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 14−16
+100%
7−8
−100%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 5−6
+150%
2−3
−150%
Battlefield 5 12−14
+550%
2−3
−550%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10−12
+120%
5−6
−120%
Cyberpunk 2077 9−10
+80%
5−6
−80%
Far Cry 5 10−12
+267%
3−4
−267%
Far Cry New Dawn 14−16
+180%
5−6
−180%
Forza Horizon 4 30−35
+267%
9−10
−267%
Hitman 3 10−12
+57.1%
7−8
−57.1%
Horizon Zero Dawn 30−35
+83.3%
18−20
−83.3%
Metro Exodus 12−14
+200%
4−5
−200%
Red Dead Redemption 2 14−16
+250%
4−5
−250%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 18−20
+80%
10−11
−80%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 18−20
+50%
12−14
−50%
Watch Dogs: Legion 45−50
+30.6%
35−40
−30.6%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 14−16
+100%
7−8
−100%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 5−6
+150%
2−3
−150%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10−12
+120%
5−6
−120%
Cyberpunk 2077 9−10
+80%
5−6
−80%
Far Cry 5 10−12
+267%
3−4
−267%
Forza Horizon 4 30−35
+267%
9−10
−267%
Hitman 3 10−12
+57.1%
7−8
−57.1%
Horizon Zero Dawn 30−35
+83.3%
18−20
−83.3%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 18−20
+80%
10−11
−80%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 18−20
+50%
12−14
−50%
Watch Dogs: Legion 45−50
+30.6%
35−40
−30.6%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 14−16
+250%
4−5
−250%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5 10−11
+233%
3−4
−233%
Far Cry New Dawn 8−9
+167%
3−4
−167%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 5−6
+150%
2−3
−150%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 0−1 0−1
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4−5
+300%
1−2
−300%
Cyberpunk 2077 2−3
+100%
1−2
−100%
Far Cry 5 6−7
+200%
2−3
−200%
Forza Horizon 4 12−14
+200%
4−5
−200%
Hitman 3 9−10
+28.6%
7−8
−28.6%
Horizon Zero Dawn 12−14
+100%
6−7
−100%
Metro Exodus 3−4
+200%
1−2
−200%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 4−5
+300%
1−2
−300%
Watch Dogs: Legion 30−35
+167%
12−14
−167%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 9−10
+80%
5−6
−80%

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5 4−5
+300%
1−2
−300%
Far Cry New Dawn 3−4
+200%
1−2
−200%
Hitman 3 1−2 0−1
Horizon Zero Dawn 8−9
+167%
3−4
−167%
Metro Exodus 2−3 0−1
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 1−2 0−1

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 3−4
+50%
2−3
−50%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 2−3
+100%
1−2
−100%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2−3
+100%
1−2
−100%
Cyberpunk 2077 0−1 0−1
Far Cry 5 3−4
+200%
1−2
−200%
Forza Horizon 4 4−5
+300%
1−2
−300%
Watch Dogs: Legion 1−2 0−1

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 6−7
+100%
3−4
−100%

This is how ATI HD 5850 and ATI Mobility HD 4870 compete in popular games:

  • ATI HD 5850 is 181% faster in 900p
  • ATI HD 5850 is 123% faster in 1080p

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

  • in Battlefield 5, with 1080p resolution and the Medium Preset, the ATI HD 5850 is 550% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

  • Without exception, ATI HD 5850 surpassed ATI Mobility HD 4870 in all 54 of our tests.

Pros & cons summary


Performance score 5.15 2.07
Recency 30 September 2009 9 January 2009
Chip lithography 40 nm 55 nm

ATI HD 5850 has a 148.8% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 8 months, and a 37.5% more advanced lithography process.

The Radeon HD 5850 is our recommended choice as it beats the Mobility Radeon HD 4870 in performance tests.

Be aware that Radeon HD 5850 is a desktop card while Mobility Radeon HD 4870 is a notebook one.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

Vote for your favorite

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ATI Radeon HD 5850
Radeon HD 5850
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870
Mobility Radeon HD 4870

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


3.5 248 votes

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3.7 9 votes

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Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.