Thread: ATI Mobility Radeon Comparison

In this article I will try to clear some doubts regarding the performance of different Mobile (laptop) graphics cards by ATI. A word to readers, if you want a really good gaming machine, do not think about laptops. Their performance is nowhere even close to their desktop counterparts.

I will analyse the commonly found ATI Graphics cards here and I will split them into 4 segments - Low end, Mid range ,Performance, High end.

Low End - ATI mobility HD4330, ATI 4530, ATI 4570

These are low end cards but should be faster than onboard Intel Graphics. The HD 4200 (onboard) has 40 shaders whereas the HD 4330 has 80. Their performance difference is not very significant when it comes to gaming, but the main advantage over onboard is that you get dedicated memory and some features (HDMI out and HD video acceleration and more). Even the HD 4530 and HD 4570 fall in this category(more or less). Their performance is nothing to boast about.


Mid Range - ATI HD3670 , HD 4650, HD 5650, HD 4670, HD 5730
With these cards, you get some performance and you can get some respectable frame rates at medium settings in most games. The HD 4650 & HD 4670 have 320 shaders. The HD 5650 has 400 shaders and is DX 11 capable.


Performance - ATI HD 4830,HD 4850, HD 4860
These cards have 800 shaders and they do provide some good performance. But they do get hot and reduce the battery life of the laptop significantly. Their performance is limited by the memory.


High End - ATI HD 4870 , HD 5830, HD 5870
All these cards also have 800 shaders (yes, even the 5830 and 5870) but are equipped with GDDR5 memory and a 256 bit bus. These are the fastest single GPU solutions from ATI. These would probably as fast as a desktop ATI 4850.


Well, this is the fastest you can get from the Red camp. You may get dual GPU options too like the 4870x2, but that would really kill the battery. To see a similar comparison of Nvidia Laptop cards, have a look here.

Mine is ATI Radeon Mobility HD 4650 1GB RAM.

It will be helpful if you also include prices for these graphic cards.

Originally Posted by Sam Bentley

It will be helpful if you also include prices for these graphic cards.

You can not buy these graphics cards separately. These come with the laptop itself.

Originally Posted by stick0

Mine is ATI Radeon Mobility HD 4650 1GB RAM.

You probably have an HP DV6 series laptop, am i right ?

^
Yup,DV6-2005AX

Originally Posted by stick0

^
Yup,DV6-2005AX

buddy, it would be really nice if you could run some gaming benchmarks on our PC and post them in this thread, it would be really helpful for future reference.

Yea, we could btw which PC are you using?

Originally Posted by stick0

Yea, we could btw which PC are you using?

I am using an assembled desktop. Will put the config in my signature soon.