GeForce GTX 280M SLI vs Mobility Radeon HD 4870

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 280M SLI and Mobility Radeon HD 4870, 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 GTX 280M SLI stacks up against Mobility Radeon HD 4870, check out specs charts below.

GeForce GTX 280M SLI and Mobility Radeon HD 4870 are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: GeForce GTX 280M SLI and Mobility Radeon HD 4870 are only used in laptop graphics. They have 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 GeForce GTX 280M SLI or Mobility Radeon HD 4870 here:

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 280M SLI Mobility Radeon HD 4870
Power consumption (TDP) 150 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16
Memory type GDDR3 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 1 GB
Display Connectors No outputs
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  • GeForce GTX 280M SLI has 1 GB more memory, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.
  • Both cards are used in Laptops.
  • GeForce GTX 280M SLI is build with G9x architecture, and Mobility Radeon HD 4870 - with Terascale 1.
  • Core clock speed of GeForce GTX 280M SLI is 35 MHz higher, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.
  • GeForce GTX 280M SLI and Mobility Radeon HD 4870 are manufactured by 55 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of GeForce GTX 280M SLI is 62 MHz higher, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 12−14 7−8
ultra / 1080p 7−8 4−5
QHD / 1440p 2−3 0−1
low / 720p 24−27 16−18
medium / 1080p 14−16 8−9
The average gaming FPS of GeForce GTX 280M SLI in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 66% more, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 280M SLI Mobility Radeon HD 4870
Architecture G9x Terascale 1
Code name N10E-GTX M98-XT
Type Laptop Laptop
Release date 2 March 2009 9 January 2009
Pipelines 256 800
Core clock speed 585 MHz 550 MHz
Transistor count 1508 Million 956 million
Manufacturing process technology 55 nm 55 nm
Texture fill rate 22.00
Floating-point performance 880.0 gflops
Memory bus width 256 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 950 MHz 888 MHz
Memory bandwidth 56.83 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX DirectX 10, Shader 4.0 10.1 (10_1)
Shader Model 4.1
OpenGL 3.3
OpenCL 1.1
Vulkan N/A
CUDA +
Laptop size large large
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