Notebookcheck

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M is an upper mid-range, DirectX 12-compatible graphics card for laptops unveiled in March 2014. It is one of the first cards based on Nvidia's new Maxwell architecture (GM107 chip), but is still manufactured in 28 nm. The GTX 850M offers 640 shader units clocked at 876 MHz (+ Boost) as well as 4 GB of GDDR5 memory (128 bit, 5000 MHz effective). In addition, there is a slightly higher clocked version (936 MHz + Boost) using slower DDR3 memory (2000 MHz effective).

Architecture

Compared to Kepler, Maxwell has been optimized in several details to increase power efficiency. Smaller Streaming Multiprocessors (SMM) with only 128 ALUs (Kepler: 192) and an optimized scheduler should lead to better utilization of the shaders. Nvidia promises that a Maxwell SMM with 128 ALUs can offer 90 percent of the performance of a Kepler SMX with 192 ALUs. GM107 features 5 SMMs and thus 640 shader cores, 40 TMUs and 16 ROPs (128-bit interface).

Another optimization is the massively enlarged L2 cache (GM107: 2 MB). The larger size can process some of the memory traffic to allow for a relatively narrow memory interface without significantly reducing performance.

Similar to Fermi and Kepler, Maxwell / GM107 supports DirectX 12 with feature level 11_0 only.

Performance

Although the GTX 850M has less shaders, it often outperforms the old Kepler-based GeForce GTX 765M while drawing less power. Despite the lower core clock, the GDDR5 version usually takes the lead over the DDR3 model and sometimes even beats the Kepler variant of the GeForce GTX 860M. Many games of 2013/2014 (Tomb Raider or BioShock Infinite, etc.) can be played fluently in FullHD resolution and high detail settings. However, very demanding games such as Crysis 3 or Battlefield 4 will require lower resolutions and/or details.

Features

GM107 integrates the sixth generation of the PureVideo HD video engine (VP6), offering a better decoding performance for H.264 and MPEG-2 videos. Of course, VP6 supports all features of previous generations (4K support, PIP, video encoding via NVENC API). Unfortunately, HDMI 2.0 is still not supported.

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the GeForce GTX 850M should be somewhat below the old GTX 760M at about 40 - 45 Watts. Therefore, the 850M is best suited for 15-inch laptops or larger. The 800M series also supports Optimus to automatically switch between an integrated graphics card and the Nvidia GPU.

ManufacturerNVIDIA
GeForce GTX 800M Series
GeForce GTX 880M SLI (compare) 3072 @ 954 MHz2x 256 Bit @ 5000 MHz
GeForce GTX 860M SLI (compare) 1280 @ 1029 MHz2x 128 Bit @ 5000 MHz
GeForce GTX 880M (compare) 1536 @ 954 MHz256 Bit @ 5000 MHz
GeForce GTX 870M (compare) 1344 @ 941 MHz192 Bit @ 5000 MHz
GeForce GTX 860M (compare) 640 @ 1029 MHz128 Bit @ 5000 MHz
GeForce GTX 850M 640 @ 876 MHz128 Bit @ 2000 - 5000 MHz
CodenameN15P-GT
ArchitectureMaxwell
Pipelines640 - unified
Core Speed876 MHz
Memory Speed2000 - 5000 MHz
Memory Bus Width128 Bit
Memory TypeDDR3, GDDR5
Max. Amount of Memory4096 MB
Shared Memoryno
DirectXDirectX 12 (FL 11_0), Shader 5.0
Transistor Count1870 Million
technology28 nm
FeaturesBattery Boost, GameStream, ShadowPlay, GPU Boost 2.0, Optimus, PhysX, CUDA, SLI, GeForce Experience, Adaptive VSync, Ansel
Notebook Sizemedium sized
Date of Announcement12.03.2014
Link to Manufacturer Pagehttp://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook...

Benchmarks

3DMark - Cloud Gate Standard Score 1280x720
min: 7761     avg: 11775     median: 12781 (26%)     max: 14681 Points
+ 23 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark - Cloud Gate Standard Graphics 1280x720
min: 18079     avg: 21703.2     median: 21873 (12%)     max: 26711 Points
+ 23 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark - Fire Strike Score 1920x1080
min: 2391     avg: 2839.7     median: 2765.5 (10%)     max: 3484 Points
+ 22 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark - Fire Strike Graphics 1920x1080
min: 2798     avg: 3162.2     median: 3085.5 (8%)     max: 3685 Points
+ 22 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark - Ice Storm Standard Graphics 1280x720
min: 45356     avg: 108131     median: 110220 (15%)     max: 190512 Points
+ 21 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark 11 - Performance 1280x720
min: 3829     avg: 4389.3     median: 4495 (15%)     max: 4871 points
+ 21 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark 11 - Performance GPU 1280x720
min: 3925     avg: 4333.2     median: 4385.5 (9%)     max: 4682 points
+ 20 benchmarks and specifications   - Hide comparison chart
3DMark Vantage
P Result 1280x1024 +
P GPU no PhysX 1280x1024 +
3DMark 06 Standard 1280x1024 +
Unigine Heaven 3.0 - DX 11, Normal Tessellation, High Shaders 1920x1080
min: 40     avg: 42.2     median: 41.8 (16%)     max: 45.6 fps
+ 5 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
Unigine Heaven 2.1 - high, Tesselation (normal), DirectX11 1280x1024
min: 55.1     avg: 58.6     median: 57.7 (26%)     max: 63.9 fps
+ 4 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
SPECviewperf 12
Solidworks (sw-03) 1900x1060 +
Siemens NX (snx-02) 1900x1060 +
Showcase (showcase-01) 1900x1060 +
Medical (medical-01) 1900x1060 +
Maya (maya-04) 1900x1060 +
Energy (energy-01) 1900x1060 +
Creo (creo-01) 1900x1060 +
Catia (catia-04) 1900x1060 +
Cinebench R10 Shading 32Bit +
Cinebench R11.5 OpenGL 64Bit +
Cinebench R15
OpenGL 64Bit +
Ref. Match 64Bit +
LuxMark v2.0 64Bit - Room GPUs-only
min: 533     avg: 591     median: 590 (11%)     max: 650 Samples/s
+ 3 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
LuxMark v2.0 64Bit - Sala GPUs-only
min: 926     avg: 1012.3     median: 999 (10%)     max: 1112 Samples/s
+ 3 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
ComputeMark v2.1 - Normal, Score 1024x600
2678 Points (12%)
+ 1 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
- 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 detailled information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

Need for Speed 2016

Need for Speed 2016

2016
low 1280x720
49.8  fps    + Compare
med. 1366x768
43.2  fps    + Compare
high 1920x1080
23.9  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
18.3  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Additional Benchmarks
Medium / Off 1920x1080
31.9
Hitman 2016

Hitman 2016

2016
low 1280x720
42.4  fps    + Compare
med. 1366x768
38.1  fps    + Compare
high 1920x1080
16.6  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
14.9  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Additional Benchmarks
Medium / Off 4xAF 1920x1080
29.1
The Division

The Division

2016
low 1280x720
54.6  fps    + Compare
med. 1366x768
40.5  fps    + Compare
high 1920x1080
19.3  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
14.5  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Additional Benchmarks
Medium Preset 4xAF 1920x1080
25.7
Far Cry Primal

Far Cry Primal

2016
low 1280x720
56  fps    + Compare
med. 1920x1080
25  fps    + Compare
high 1920x1080
22  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
15  fps    + Compare
3840x2160
6  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Additional Benchmarks
Low Preset 1920x1080
29
XCOM 2