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ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850

The ATI Mobilty Radeon HD 4850 from AMD is a DirectX 10.1 high end notebook graphics adapter. Technically it is based on the desktop HD 4850 GPUs but with a lower clock rate to save energy.

The gaming performance of the ATI Mobility Radeon HD4850 should be compareable to the desktop HD 4830 and therefore very good. The high amount of shaders and the 256 bit bus allows to run every DirectX 9 game in high resolutions and details. Demanding DirectX 10 games, like Crysis can be played with medium to high details.

The Mobility HD 4850 is based on the RV770 chip and features 800 stream processors (160 5-dimensional shader cores). These cores do the graphic work of the shader- and pixel pipelines of older GPUs. The stream processors are also called ALUs and are grouped in five-way VLIW units. Each of the five instructions of a VLIW bundle has to be independent from the others and therefore the performance depends on the optimization of the driver.

The Mobility Radeon HD 4850 includes the Avivo HD called video technology including an onboard soundchip for 7.1 sound output over HDMI or DisplayPort and the 2nd generation UVD (Unified Video Decoder). This UVD 2 supports full bitstream decoding of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 streams. In addition to this, it also supports dual video stream decoding and Picture-in Picture mode which makes the UVD full BD-Live compliant. Simplified, the Avivo HD technology handles all video tasks and enables the GPU to decode HD videos.

AMD published a current consumtion of about 45-65 Watt for the HD 4850-4870. Still it is unclear if this value represents the chip alone or the whole mxm board including the memory (which would include about 5 Watt).

Compared to the desktop ATI Radeon HD 4850, the mobile 4850 features a slower core clock and therfore should perform in the region of the desktop HD 4830.

ManufacturerATI
SeriesMobility Radeon HD 4000
CodenameM98
Pipelines800 - unified
Core Speed *500 MHz
Shader 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 2001: - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
      min: 41976, avg: 41976, max: 41976 Points
... More Details

3DMark 03: - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
      min: 33658, avg: 33658, max: 33658 Points
... More Details

3DMark 05: - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
      min: 12318, avg: 15419, max: 17443 Points
... More Details

3DMark 06:
0% 100%
      min: 9314, avg: 9843, max: 10965 Points
... More Details

Cinebench R10: - Shading
0% 100%
      min: 5682, avg: 5682, max: 5682 Points
... More Details

3DMark Vantage: - P Result 1280x1024
0% 100%
      min: 5000, avg: 5285, max: 5614 Points
... More Details

- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
Based on 16 benchmarks

Game Benchmarks

Anno 1404
Anno 1404 (2009)
ultra:
42  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Sims 3
Sims 3 (2009)
low:
251.2  fps
med.:
173.7  fps
high:
97.5  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
F.E.A.R. 2
F.E.A.R. 2 (2009)
low:
193.6  fps
med.:
119.1  fps
high:
86.1  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
GTA IV - Grand Theft Auto
GTA IV - Grand Theft Auto (2008)
low:
61.6  fps
med.:
47.1  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2 (2008)
low:
75 80.3 ~ 78 fps
high:
45 50.1 ~ 48 fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis Warhead
Crysis Warhead (2008)
low:
50  fps
ultra:
16  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Racedriver: GRID
Racedriver: GRID (2008)
low:
107.7  fps
med.:
68  fps
high:
62.1  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare
Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare (2007)
low:
133 197.6 ~ 165 fps
med.:
100.2  fps
high:
64.5 68 ~ 66 fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Supreme Commander - FA Bench
Supreme Commander - FA Bench (2007)
med.:
57.2  fps
high:
47 52.6 ~ 50 fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis - GPU Benchmark
Crysis - GPU Benchmark (2007)
low:
99.5  fps
med.:
60.7  fps
high:
44.8  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis - CPU Benchmark
Crysis - CPU Benchmark (2007)
low:
113.4 130.5 ~ 122 fps
med.:
57.6  fps
high:
38.9 43.8 ~ 41 fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
World in Conflict - Benchmark
World in Conflict - Benchmark (2007)
med.:
55 76 ~ 66 fps
high:
34 46 ~ 40 fps
» With most tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Call of Juarez Benchmark
Call of Juarez Benchmark (2006)
high:
43  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
F.E.A.R.
F.E.A.R. (2005)
low:
461  fps
high:
141  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft (2005)
med.:
190  fps
high:
43  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Counter-Strike Source
Counter-Strike Source (2004)
high:
198  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Doom 3
Doom 3 (2004)
low:
186.3  fps
ultra:
182.5  fps
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo
Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo (1999)
high:
579  fps
» 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

Notebook reviews with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 graphics card

Advent 6555 (Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000, 17.0")
» Advent 6555 - External Review

MSI Megabook GT725 (Intel Core 2 Duo P9500, 17.0")
» Review MSI GT725 Gaming Notebook - Review
» MSI Megabook GT725 - External Review
» MSI Megabook GT725Q - External Review

 

Author: Klaus Hinum (Update: 2009-09-24)