GeForce 9800 GTX vs Mobility Radeon HD 5870

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce 9800 GTX and Mobility Radeon HD 5870, there are a couple of things to consider. Cards with more VRAM in general perform better and allow you to play on higher graphics settings. Size also makes a difference. A model with a large heatsink can occupy up to three expansion slots on a motherboard. Be sure you have enough room in your PC case. When comparing GPUs with different architectures, more processing cores and even higher TFLOPS will not always translate to better performance. To help you decide which GPU you need, we have measured frame rates in a number of popular games. For more on how the GeForce 9800 GTX stacks up against Mobility Radeon HD 5870, check out specs charts below.

Mobility Radeon HD 5870 is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Mobility Radeon HD 5870 is only used in laptop graphics. It has lower GPU clock speed compared to the desktop variant, which results in lower power consumption, but also 10-30% lower gaming performance. Check available laptop models with Mobility Radeon HD 5870 here:

Main Specs

  GeForce 9800 GTX Mobility Radeon HD 5870
Power consumption (TDP) 140 Watt 50 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 MXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR3 DDR3, GDDR3, GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 512 MB 1 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x S-Video No outputs
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  • GeForce 9800 GTX has 180% more power consumption, than Mobility Radeon HD 5870.
  • GeForce 9800 GTX is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Mobility Radeon HD 5870 uses MXM-B (3.0) interface.
  • GeForce 9800 GTX has 511 GB more memory, than Mobility Radeon HD 5870.
  • GeForce 9800 GTX is used in Desktops, and Mobility Radeon HD 5870 - in Laptops.
  • GeForce 9800 GTX is build with Tesla architecture, and Mobility Radeon HD 5870 - with Terascale 2.
  • Core clock speed of GeForce 9800 GTX is 988 MHz higher, than Mobility Radeon HD 5870.
  • GeForce 9800 GTX is manufactured by 65 nm process technology, and Mobility Radeon HD 5870 - by 40 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of GeForce 9800 GTX is 100 MHz higher, than Mobility Radeon HD 5870.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 0−1 10−11
ultra / 1080p 6−7
QHD / 1440p 0−1 0−1
low / 720p 1−2 21−24
medium / 1080p 0−1 12−14
The average gaming FPS of Mobility Radeon HD 5870 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 2100% more, than GeForce 9800 GTX.

Full Specs

  GeForce 9800 GTX Mobility Radeon HD 5870
Architecture Tesla Terascale 2
Code name G92 Broadway-XT
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 28 March 2008 7 January 2010
Pipelines 128 800
Core clock speed 1688 MHz 700 MHz
Transistor count 754 million 1,040 million
Manufacturing process technology 65 nm 40 nm
Texture fill rate 43.2 billion/sec 28.00
Floating-point performance 432.1 gflops 1,120.0 gflops
Length 10.5" (26.7 cm)
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 1100 MHz 1000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 70.4 GB/s 64 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 11.1 (10_0) 11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model 4.0 5.0
OpenGL 2.1 4.4
OpenCL 1.1 1.2
Vulkan N/A N/A
CUDA +
CUDA cores 128
Bus support PCI-E 2.0
Height 4.376" (11.1 cm)
SLI options +
Multi monitor support +
HDMI Via Adapter
Maximum VGA resolution 2048x1536
Audio input for HDMI S/PDIF
Laptop size large
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