GeForce GTX 480 vs Mobility Radeon HD 4870

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 480 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 480 stacks up against Mobility Radeon HD 4870, check out specs charts below.

Mobility Radeon HD 4870 is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Mobility Radeon HD 4870 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 4870 here:

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 480 Mobility Radeon HD 4870
Power consumption (TDP) 250 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 6-pin & 8-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1536 MB 1 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x mini-HDMI No outputs
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  • Both video cards are using PCIe 2.0 x16 interface connection to a motherboard.
  • GeForce GTX 480 has 1535 GB more memory, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.
  • GeForce GTX 480 is used in Desktops, and Mobility Radeon HD 4870 - in Laptops.
  • GeForce GTX 480 is build with Fermi architecture, and Mobility Radeon HD 4870 - with Terascale 1.
  • Core clock speed of GeForce GTX 480 is 150 MHz higher, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.
  • GeForce GTX 480 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Mobility Radeon HD 4870 - by 55 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of GeForce GTX 480 is 960 MHz higher, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 21−24 7−8
ultra / 1080p 12−14 4−5
QHD / 1440p 6−7 0−1
4K / 2160p 5−6
low / 720p 40−45 16−18
medium / 1080p 24−27 8−9
The average gaming FPS of GeForce GTX 480 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 177% more, than Mobility Radeon HD 4870.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 480 Mobility Radeon HD 4870
Architecture Fermi Terascale 1
Code name GF100 M98-XT
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 7 December 2010 9 January 2009
Pipelines 480 800
Core clock speed 700 MHz 550 MHz
Transistor count 3,100 million 956 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 55 nm
Texture fill rate 42 billion/sec 22.00
Floating-point performance 1,345.0 gflops 880.0 gflops
Length 10.5" (267 mm) (26.7 cm)
Memory bus width 384 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1848 MHz (3696 data rate) 888 MHz
Memory bandwidth 177.4 GB/s 56.83 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX 12 (11_0) 10.1 (10_1)
Shader Model 5.1 4.1
OpenGL 4.2 3.3
OpenCL 1.1 1.1
Vulkan N/A N/A
CUDA +
CUDA cores 480
Bus support 16x PCI-E 2.0
Height 4.376" (111 mm) (11.1 cm)
SLI options +
Multi monitor support +
HDMI +
HDCP +
Maximum VGA resolution 2048x1536
Audio input for HDMI Internal
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 117 Mh/s
Laptop size large
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