Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 vs Radeon HD 8870M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 and Radeon HD 8870M, 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 Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 stacks up against Radeon HD 8870M, check out specs charts below.

Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 and Radeon HD 8870M are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 and Radeon HD 8870M 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 Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 or Radeon HD 8870M here:

Main Specs

  Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 Radeon HD 8870M
Power consumption (TDP) 110 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Memory type GDDR3 GDDR5, DDR3
Maximum RAM amount 512 MB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs No outputs
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  • Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 8870M uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 has 510 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 8870M.
  • Both cards are used in Laptops.
  • Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 is build with RV6xx architecture, and Radeon HD 8870M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon HD 8870M is 65 MHz higher, than Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2.
  • Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 is manufactured by 55 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 8870M - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 8870M is 3650 MHz higher, than Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 6−7 7−8
ultra / 1080p 4−5 4−5
QHD / 1440p 0−1 0−1
low / 720p 16−18 18−20
medium / 1080p 8−9 9−10
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 8870M in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 11% more, than Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2.

Full Specs

  Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 Radeon HD 8870M
Architecture RV6xx GCN
Code name M88-XT CF Venus
Type Laptop Laptop
Release date 1 September 2008 18 December 2012
Pipelines 640 640
Core clock speed 660 MHz 725 MHz
Boost Clock 775 MHz
Transistor count 666 million 1,500 million
Manufacturing process technology 55 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 10.56 31.00
Floating-point performance 2x 422.4 gflops 992.0 gflops
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 850 MHz 4500 MHz
Memory bandwidth 54.4 GB/s 72 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX 10.1 (10_1) 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 4.1 5.1
OpenGL 3.3 4.6
OpenCL N/A 1.2
Vulkan N/A 1.2.131
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 107 Mh/s
Laptop size large large
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