The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 is a high-end DirectX 11 capable graphics card by AMD for laptops. At the time of announcement, (Jan 2010) the 5870 paired with GDDR5 memory should be the fastest laptop GPU available, excluding SLI or CrossFire solutions. Technically, the chip is based on the desktop Radeon HD 5770 (RV840) with a slower clock rate.
The memory interface of the Mobility 5870 is composed of two 64 bit wide controllers leading to a 128 bit memory bus that can access up to 1024 MB of DDR3 or GDDR5 memory (or 512 MB GDDR3). If (G)DDR3 is used by the laptop vendor, the performance of the 5870 will become bottlenecked by a noticeable degree.
The HD 5870 offers 800 MADD cores (called Stream Processors) which are grouped in 160 5-dimensional groups. The cores support DirectX 11 functions in hardware (Tessellation, OIT, Post-Processing, Shadows, HDR Texture Compression). Furthermore, 16 ROPs, 40TMUs, and 40 TAUs can be found on the chip. All in all, the approximately 1.04 billion transistors of the 5870 offer a theroretic computation power of up to 1.12 TFLOPS.
According to AMD, the HD 5000 series has also been improved with regards to general computing (as opposed to the HD 4000 series). Therefore, the performance of ATI stream, OpenCL, and DirectCompute 11 applications should be noticeably better.
Compared to the previous generation such as with the Mobility Radeon HD 4870, the HD 5870 should be about 20% faster, at least according to AMD. HD 5870 cards with GDDR3 memory are expected to have lower performance gains. The gaming performance of the 5870 should be sufficient for all current games (2009-2010) in high resolution and high detail settings. The following games should run fluently in 1920x1200 with 4x Antialiasing: Left4Dead, UT3, Devil May Cry 4, Far Cry 2, ET:Quake Wars, and Wolfenstein MP (over 30 fps according to AMD slides - see below). Compared to the previous leader in the mobile segment, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M, the new HD 5870 should be noticeably faster.
The Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series includes an improved video processor (UVD2) to decode HD videos with the graphics card. Assuming adequate memory bandwidth, the new version can decode two HD streams simultaneously (e.g., for Blu-Ray picture in picture). Beginning from Flash 10.1 Beta, the 5000 series can also accelerate Flash HD videos (e.g., Youtube).
A special feature of the HD 5000 series is its ability to transmit HD audio formats, such as Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master Audio, with up to 8 channels and 192 kHz / 24 Bit over HDMI 1.3a.
Similar to the desktop HD 5000 series, the Mobility HD 5870 also supports Eyefinity to connect up to 6 monitors on a computer. Of course, this depends on how many monitor outputs the laptop can physically support. Furthermore, it appears that only laptops with DisplayPort outputs (e.g., HP Envy 17) can support Eyefinity.
Due to the high power consumption of the Mobility Radeon HD 5870, the GPU is only suited for large laptops with good (and possibly loud) cooling solutions. According to AMD, the performance per watt and the idle power consumption have both been improved thanks to Memory Clock Scaling and Clock Gating. Furthermore, the chip supports PowerXpress (with AMD chipset) and Switchable Graphics (Intel) to switch between dedicated and integrated graphics.
Compared to desktop graphics cards, the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 should perform somewhere between a Radeon HD 5750 and 5770 according to the shader count of the desktop 5770 and the clock rate of the desktop 5750.
Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series
| |||||||||||||
| Codename | Broadway-XT | ||||||||||||
| Architecture | Terascale 2 | ||||||||||||
| Pipelines | 800 - unified | ||||||||||||
| Core Speed | 700 MHz | ||||||||||||
| Memory Speed | 1000 MHz | ||||||||||||
| Memory Bus Width | 128 Bit | ||||||||||||
| Memory Type | DDR3, GDDR3, GDDR5 | ||||||||||||
| Max. Amount of Memory | 1024 MB | ||||||||||||
| Shared Memory | no | ||||||||||||
| API | DirectX 11, Shader 5.0 | ||||||||||||
| Power Consumption | 50 Watt | ||||||||||||
| technology | 40 nm | ||||||||||||
| Features | Eyefinity (up to 6 displays), HD Audio (Dolby True HD, DTS HD), HDMI 1.3a, Avivo HD (UVD2.2) | ||||||||||||
| Notebook Size | large | ||||||||||||
| Date of Announcement | 07.01.2010 | ||||||||||||
| Information | 1.12 TFLOPS | ||||||||||||
- Average benchmark values for this graphics cardThe 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.
| low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fifa 11 | 264 | 169 | 128 | 90.3 | ||
| Mafia 2 | 68.9 | 65.7 | 60.7 | 41.1 | ||
| StarCraft 2 | 167 | 64 | 57 | 41 | ||
| Metro 2033 | 85.3 | 53.5 | 30.5 | 10.9 | ||
| Battlefield: Bad Company 2 | 104.2 | 80.5 | 58.6 | 32 | ||
| CoD Modern Warfare 2 | 161 | 79 | 66.3 | 50 | ||
| Risen | 108.8 | 58 | 40.9 | 31.6 | ||
| Resident Evil 5 | 97.9 | 77.5 | 56.1 | |||
| Need for Speed Shift | 57.8 | 54 | 52.3 | 42 | ||
| Colin McRae: DIRT 2 | 112.9 | 81 | 48.5 | 31 | ||
| Anno 1404 | 131.8 | 81 | ||||
| F.E.A.R. 2 | 192 | 110 | 97 | 52 | ||
| Far Cry 2 | 119 | 83 | 42 | |||
| Crysis - GPU Benchmark | 129 | 72 | 54 | 17.1 | ||
| Crysis - CPU Benchmark | 135 | 71 | 51 | 15.8 | ||
| Call of Juarez Benchmark | 59.9 | |||||
| Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark | 200.9 | |||||
| < 30 fps < 60 fps < 120 fps ≥ 120 fps | 1 7 7 | 3 8 1 | 9 5 2 | 3 10 2 | | |
For more games that might be playable and a list of all games and graphics cards visit our Gaming List
AMD has published a few benchmarks on their slides when presenting the new Mobility 5000 series. Please be aware that the selection of the games and settings may be favorable for AMD and therefore may not represent the general performance of the card.
Medion X7811 / MD97327 DE: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.00", 3.2 kg
Review » Review Medion Akoya X7811 Gaming-Notebook
Deviltech Devil 9700 DTX HD 5870: Intel Core i7-820QM, 15.60", 3.5 kg
Review » Review Deviltech Devil 9700 DTX (ATI HD 5870) Notebook
Mesh Ultima i5-B: Intel Core i5-460M, 15.60", 2.6 kg
External Review » Mesh Ultima i5-B
MSI GX660R-i5647LW7P: Intel Core i5-460M, 15.60", 3.5 kg
External Review » MSI GX660R-i5647LW7P
Medion Akoya X7811-MD97588: Intel Core i5-450M, 17.00", 3 kg
External Review » Medion Akoya X7811-MD97588
Alienware M17X10: Intel Core i5-520M, 17.00", 5.2 kg
External Review » Alienware M17X10
Alienware M17X, HD5870: Intel Core i5-520M, 17.00", 5.3 kg
External Review » Alienware M17X, HD5870
SCHENKER XMG A710: Intel Core i5-460M, 17.30", 3.1 kg
External Review » mySN XMG A710
MSI GX660R-i7488LW7P: Intel Core i7-740QM, 15.60", 3.5 kg
External Review » MSI GX660R-i7488LW7P
MSI GX660R-064: Intel Core i7-720QM, 15.60", 3.4 kg
External Review » MSI GX660R-064
Deviltech HellMachine (HD 5870): Intel Core i7-720QM, 18.40", 5.5 kg
External Review » Deviltech HellMachine (HD 5870)
Asus G73JH-BST7: Intel Core i7-740QM, 17.30", 3.7 kg
External Review » Asus G73JH-BST7
Asus G73JH-A1: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.30", 3.6 kg
External Review » Asus G73JH-A1
MSI GX660R: Intel Core i7-740QM, 15.60", 3.5 kg
External Review » MSI GX660R
MSI GX660-076EU: Intel Core i5-450M, 15.60", 3.5 kg
External Review » MSI GX660-076EU
Origin PC EON15: Intel Core i5-430M, 15.60", 3.4 kg
External Review » Origin PC EON15
Maingear eX-L 17: Intel Core i5-520M, 17.30", 3.6 kg
External Review » Maingear eX-L 17
MSI GX740-079US: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.00", 3.2 kg
External Review » MSI GX740-079US
Asus G73JH-X1: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.30", 3.6 kg
External Review » Asus G73JH-X1
MSI Megabook GX740-091: Intel Core i5-430M, 17.00", 3.3 kg
External Review » MSI Megabook GX740-091
Sager NP8690: Intel Core i5-520M, 15.60", 3.3 kg
External Review » Sager NP8690
Asus G73Jh-TZ008V: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.00", 3.4 kg
External Review » Asus G73Jh-TZ008V
AVADirect Clevo W860CU: Intel Core i7-720QM, 15.60", 2.9 kg
External Review » AVADirect Clevo W860CU
Asus G73JH-TZ014V: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.30", 4 kg
External Review » Asus G73JH-TZ014V
Asus G73JH-TZ038V: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.30", 3.8 kg
External Review » Asus G73JH-TZ038V
MSI GX740-i7247LW7P: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.00", 3.4 kg
External Review » MSI GX740-i7247LW7P
MSI GX740-i5448LW7P: Intel Core i5-430M, 17.00", 3.2 kg
External Review » MSI GX740-i5448LW7P
Asus G73JH-RBBX05: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.30", 3.9 kg
External Review » Asus G73JH-RBBX05
Medion X7811 / MD97327 DE: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.00", 3.2 kg
External Review » Medion X7811 / MD97327 DE
Asus G73JH-TY042V: Intel Core i5-520M, 17.30", 3.9 kg
External Review » Asus G73JH-TY042V
Asus G73J: Intel Core i7-920XM, 17.30", 3.6 kg
External Review » Asus G73J
Sager NP8760: Intel Core i7-820QM, 17.30", 3.8 kg
External Review » Sager NP8760
Asus G73JH: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.30", 3.6 kg
External Review » Asus G73JH
Deviltech Devil 9700 DTX HD 5870: Intel Core i7-820QM, 15.60", 3.5 kg
External Review » Deviltech Devil 9700 DTX HD 5870
» Comparison of GPUs
Detailed list of all laptop GPUs sorted by class and performance.
» Benchmark List
Sort and restrict laptop GPUs based on performance in synthetic benchmarks.
» Notebook Gaming List
Playable games for each graphics card and their average FPS results.
* Approximate position of the graphics adapter
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