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ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870

The ATI Mobilty Radeon HD 4870 from AMD is a high-end DirectX 10.1 notebook graphics card. Technically, it is based on the desktop HD 4850 and 4870 GPUs but with a lower clock rate to save energy. The HD 4870 is also equipped with GDDR5 RAM, similar to its desktop variations. The successor of the HD 4870 is the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 which supports DirectX 11.

The gaming performance of the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 should be comparable to, but still a bit below, the desktop HD 4850. The high amount of shaders and the 256 bit bus allows the Mobility HD 4870 to run every DirectX 9 game in high resolutions and detail settings. Demanding DirectX 10 games, such as Crysis, can be played fluently with medium to high details. Compared to the GeForce GTX 280M, the Mobility HD 4870 delivers a similar level of performance in games.

The Mobility HD 4870 is based on the RV770 chip and features 800 stream processors (160 5-dimensional shader cores). These cores do the graphics work that would normally be done by 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 much of the performance of the HD 4870 depends on the optimization of the driver.

 

The Mobility Radeon HD 4870 includes Avivo HD, UVD2 and an onboard soundchip for 7.1 sound output over HDMI or DisplayPort. The UVD2 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 for full compliancy of the current BD-Live standard. Simply put, the Avivo HD technology handles all video tasks and enables the GPU to decode HD videos.

AMD has published a current consumption of about 65 Watt for the Mobility HD 4870. Still, it is unclear if this value represents the chip alone or the entire MXM board including the memory (which we estimate would contribute about 5 Watts).

Compared to the desktop ATI Radeon HD 4870, the mobile 4870 features a slower core clock and should therefore perform more similarly to the desktop HD 4850 and 4830.

Mobility Radeon HD 4000 Series

Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2 compare 1600 @ 0.55 GHz256 Bit @ 888 MHz
Mobility Radeon HD 4870 800 @ 0.55 GHz256 Bit @ 888 MHz
CodenameM98-XT
ArchitectureTerascale 1
Pipelines800 - unified
Core Speed550 MHz
Memory Speed888 MHz
Memory Bus Width256 Bit
Memory TypeGDDR5
Max. Amount of Memory1024 MB
Shared Memoryno
APIDirectX 10.1, Shader 4.1
Transistor Count956 Million
technology55 nm
Features

OpenGL 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 Pageati.amd.com

Benchmarks

3DMark Vantage
3DM Vant. Perf. total +
3DM Vant. Perf. GPU no PhysX +
3DMark 05 - 3DMark 05 - Standard
min: 14594     avg: 16349     median: 16348.5 (18%)     max: 18103 Points
3DMark 06 3DMark 06 - Standard 1280x1024 +
3DMark 06
min: 10183     avg: 10655     median: 10655 (14%)     max: 11127 Points
Cinebench R10 Cinebench R10 Shading (32bit) +
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance

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 detailed information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

med. 1024x768
46.4  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
30.8  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Risen

Risen

2009
med. 1024x768
50  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
28.3  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Need for Speed Shift

Need for Speed Shift

2009
med. 1024x768
51.8  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
30.7  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Colin McRae: DIRT 2

Colin McRae: DIRT 2

2009
med. 1024x768
65.2  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
29.5  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Anno 1404

Anno 1404

2009
ultra 1280x1024
58.8  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
F.E.A.R. 2

F.E.A.R. 2

2009
high 1280x1024
88.8  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
49.3  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2

2008
Supreme Commander - FA Bench

Supreme Commander - FA Bench

2007
high 1024x768
50  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis - GPU Benchmark

Crysis - GPU Benchmark

2007
high 1024x768
50  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
14.5  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis - CPU Benchmark

Crysis - CPU Benchmark

2007
high 1024x768
43.9  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
13.5  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark

Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark

2005
high 1024x768
165  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo

Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo

1999
lowmed.highultraQHD4K
CoD Modern Warfare 246.430.8
Risen5028.3
Need for Speed Shift51.830.7
Colin McRae: DIRT 265.229.5
Anno 140458.8
F.E.A.R. 288.849.3
Far Cry 276
Supreme Commander - FA Bench50
Crysis - GPU Benchmark5014.5
Crysis - CPU Benchmark43.913.5
Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark165
Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo582
< 30 fps
< 60 fps
< 120 fps
≥ 120 fps


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Benchmarks by AMD

AMD published some relative benchmarks of the new HD 4870 in relation to the old HD 3870. The benchmarks were conducted in 1920x1200 with 4xAA and 8xAF.

Relative performance of the HD 4870 to the HD 3870 conducted with a desktop Phenom x4 9950 in 1920x1200 4xAA, 8xAF
Relative performance of the HD 4870 to the HD 3870 conducted with a desktop Phenom x4 9950 in 1920x1200 4xAA, 8xAF

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