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ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850

The ATI Mobilty Radeon HD 4850 from AMD is a DirectX 10.1 upper middle-class notebook graphics adapter. Technically, the GPU is based on the desktop HD 4850 GPU but with a lower clock rate for reduced energy consumption.

The gaming performance of the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 should be comparable to the desktop HD 4830 and is therefore very good at resolutions below 1080p. The high amount of shaders and the wide 256 bit bus can allow the card to run practically every DirectX 9 game in high resolutions and details. Demanding DirectX 10 games, such as Crysis, can be played with medium to high detail settings. Compared to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M, the HD 4850 should be a bit faster on average.

The newer Mobility HD 5850 is noticeably faster than the Mobility HD 4850 if GDDR5 graphics memory is present. If DDR3 with a smaller 128 Bit memory bus is used instead, then this would bottlebeck the 5850 to performance levels closer to that of the Mobility HD 4850.

The mobile HD 4850 core is based on the RV770 chip and features 800 stream processors (or 160 5-dimensional shader cores). These cores do the graphics work previously done by dedicated shader and pixel pipelines of older GPUs. The stream processors (also called ALUs) are grouped in five-way VLIW units. Each of the five instructions of a VLIW bundle has to be independent from the others, so the overall performance is highly dependent on driver optimizations.

The Mobility Radeon HD 4850 includes UVD 2, Avivo HD software and an onboard soundchip for 7.1 sound output over HDMI or DisplayPort. UVD 2 supports full bitstream decoding of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 streams by the GPU, thus reducing workload from the CPU. In addition to this, the software also supports dual video stream decoding and Picture-in Picture mode for full compliancy to the UVD BD-Live standards. Simply put, the Avivo HD technology is able to handle most video tasks and enables the GPU to decode HD videos.

AMD has claimed a current consumption of about 45-65 Watt for the cards part of the mobile HD 4850 to HD 4870 range. Still, it is unclear if this value represents the core chip alone or the entire MXM board with memory modules. We estimate that the VRAM chips would contribute about 5 Watts total to the overall energy demands of the mobile HD 4850.

Compared to the desktop ATI Radeon HD 4850, the mobile 4850 features a slower core clock and is therefore more similar to the desktop HD 4830 in terms of overall performance.

ManufacturerATI
Mobility Radeon HD 4800 Series

Mobility Radeon HD 4860

 640 @ 650 MHz128 Bit @ 1000 MHz
Mobility Radeon HD 4850 800 @ 500 MHz256 Bit @ 850 MHz

Mobility Radeon HD 4830

 640 @ 550 MHz128 Bit @ 700 MHz
CodenameM98
ArchitectureTerascale 1
Pipelines800 - unified
Core Speed *500 MHz
Memory Speed *850 MHz
Memory Bus Width256 Bit
Memory TypeGDDR3
Max. Amount of Memory1024 MB
Shared Memoryno
DirectXDirectX 10.1, Shader 4.1
Transistors956 Million
technology55 nm
FeaturesOpenGL 2.0, PCI-E 2.0 x16, Powerplay, DisplayPort support up to 2560x1600, HDMI support up to 1920x1080 (both with 7.1 AC3 Audio), 1x Dual-Link/Single-Link DVI, 1x Single-Link DVI Support (all display ports have to be supported by the laptop manufacturer)
Notebook Sizelarge
Date of Announcement09.01.2009
Link to Manufacturer Pagehttp://ati.amd.com/products/mobilityrade...
* The specified clock rates are only guidelines for the manufacturer and can be altered by them.

Benchmarks

3DMark Vantage - P GPU no PhysX 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 5307      avg: 5381.7 (10%)     median: 5347 (10%)     max: 5491 Points
3 benchmarks and specifications    Hide comparison chart
3DMark Vantage - P Result no PhysX 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 5000      avg: 5285.3 (11%)     median: 5263.5 (11%)     max: 5614 Points
4 benchmarks and specifications    Show comparison chart
3DMark 06
0% 100%
min: 9314      avg: 9842.8 (26%)     median: 9612 (25%)     max: 10965 Points
6 benchmarks and specifications    Show comparison chart
3DMark 05 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 12318      avg: 15419 (42%)     median: 16496 (45%)     max: 17443 Points
3 benchmarks and specifications    Show comparison chart
3DMark 03 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 33658      avg: 33658 (22%)     median: 33658 (22%)     max: 33658 Points
1 benchmarks and specifications    Show comparison chart
3DMark 2001SE - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 41976      avg: 41976 (69%)     median: 41976 (69%)     max: 41976 Points
1 benchmarks and specifications    Show comparison chart
PCMark Vantage - Gaming Score 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 4543      avg: 4543 (17%)     median: 4543 (17%)     max: 4543 Points
1 benchmarks and specifications    Show comparison chart
Cinebench R11.5 - OpenGL 64Bit
0% 100%
min: 56.27      avg: 56.3 (46%)     median: 56.3 (46%)     max: 56.27 Points
1 benchmarks and specifications    Show comparison chart
Cinebench R10 - Shading 32Bit
0% 100%
min: 5682      avg: 5682 (39%)     median: 5682 (39%)     max: 5682 Points
1 benchmarks and specifications    Show comparison chart
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card

Game Benchmarks

The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailled information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

Fifa 11

Fifa 11

2010
low 800x600
430  fps      Compare
med. 1024x768
180  fps      Compare
high 1360x768
111  fps      Compare
ultra 1920x1080
78  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Mafia 2

Mafia 2

2010
low 800x600
63  fps      Compare
med. 1024x768
53.8  fps      Compare
high 1360x768
45.7  fps      Compare
ultra 1920x1080
29.5  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
StarCraft 2
low 1024x768
254  fps      Compare
med. 1360x768
73  fps      Compare
high 1360x768
50  fps      Compare
ultra 1920x1080
30  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
low 1024x768
133  fps      Compare
med. 1366x768
70  fps      Compare
high 1366x768
47  fps      Compare
ultra 1920x1080
25  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
CoD Modern Warfare 2
ultra 1920x1080
40  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Risen

Risen

2009
high 1366x768
37  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Need for Speed Shift
high 1366x768
47  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Anno 1404

Anno 1404

2009
ultra 1280x1024
42  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Sims 3

Sims 3

2009
low 800x600
251.2  fps      Compare
med. 1024x768
173.7  fps      Compare
high 1280x1024
97.5  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
F.E.A.R. 2
low 800x600
193.6  fps      Compare
med. 1024x768
119.1  fps      Compare
high 1280x1024
86.1  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
GTA IV - Grand Theft Auto
low 800x600
61.6  fps      Compare
med. 1024x768
47.1  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Left 4 Dead
high 1024x768
115  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2

2008
low 640x480
75 80.3 ~ 78 fps      Compare
high 1024x768
45 50.1 ~ 48 fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis Warhead
low 800x600
50  fps      Compare
ultra 1024x768
16  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Racedriver: GRID
low 800x600
107.7  fps      Compare
med. 1024x768
68  fps      Compare
high 1280x1024
62.1  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Trackmania Nations Forever
high 1024x768
85.4  fps      Compare
ultra 1920x1080
40.6  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare
low 800x600
133 197.6 ~ 165 fps      Compare
med. 1024x768
100.2  fps      Compare
high 1280x1024
64.5 68 ~ 66 fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Supreme Commander - FA Bench
med. 1024x768
57.2  fps      Compare
high 1024x768
47 52.6 ~ 50 fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis - GPU Benchmark
low 1024x768
99.5  fps      Compare
med. 1024x768
60.7  fps      Compare
high 1024x768
44.8  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis - CPU Benchmark
low 1024x768
113.4 130.5 ~ 122 fps      Compare
med. 1024x768
57.6  fps      Compare
high 1024x768
38.9 43.8 ~ 41 fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
World in Conflict - Benchmark
med. 1024x768
55 76 ~ 66 fps      Compare
high 1024x768
34 46 ~ 40 fps      Compare
» With most tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Call of Juarez Benchmark
high 1024x768
43  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
F.E.A.R.

F.E.A.R.

2005
low 640x480
461  fps      Compare
high 1024x768
141  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
World of Warcraft
med. 1024x768
190  fps      Compare
high 1280x1024
43  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Counter-Strike Source
high 1024x768
198  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Doom 3

Doom 3

2004
low 640x480
186.3  fps      Compare
ultra 1024x768
182.5  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo
high 1024x768
579  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.

For more games that might be playable and a list of all games and graphics cards visit our Gaming List

#0 Did not recreate cache, as it is less than 5 days old +0.001s ... 0.001s

#1 min, max, avg, median took 7.939338684082E-5s +0.149s ... 0.15s

#2 Before gaming benchmark output +0s ... 0.15s

#3 return log +0.452s ... 0.602s

Notebook reviews with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 graphics card

MSI Megabook GT725: Intel Core 2 Duo P9500, 17.0", 3.4 kg
  Review » Review MSI GT725 Gaming Notebook

Advent 6555: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000, 17.0", 3.6 kg
  External Review » Advent 6555

MSI Megabook GT725: Intel Core 2 Duo P9500, 17.0", 3.4 kg
  External Review » MSI Megabook GT725

  External Review » MSI Megabook GT725Q

» Comparison of GPUs
Detailled list of all laptop GPUs with a short description. Classified and sorted by performance.

» Benchmark List
Sortable and restrainable list of all GPUs with benchmarks (e.g. 3DMarks).

» Notebook Gaming List
Which game can be played with my graphics card.

Class 1
GeForce GTX 590
GeForce GTX 580
Radeon HD 6970
GeForce GTX 570
GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Radeon HD 5850
Radeon HD 7770
Radeon HD 7770
GeForce GTX 460 768MB
Radeon HD 6790
Radeon HD 5770
GeForce GTX 550 Ti
Class 2
GeForce GTS 450
Radeon HD 4850
Class 3
Radeon HD 5670
GeForce GT 240
Radeon R6 M255DX
GeForce GT 430
Radeon HD 5570
GeForce GT 220
Radeon HD 6450 GDDR5
Class 4
Mali-T760 MP6
Class 5
Radeon HD 4350
GeForce G 107M *
Chrome9HD *
Class 6
Mali-T760 MP2
unknown *

* Approximate position of the graphics adapter

> Notebook / Laptop Reviews and News > FAQ / Tips / Technics > Comparison of Laptop Graphics Cards > AMD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850
Author: Klaus Hinum (Update: 2013-01-16)