ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 vs NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR

Comparative analysis of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 and NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR videocards for all known characteristics in the following categories: Essentials, Technical info, Video outputs and ports, Compatibility, dimensions and requirements, API support, Memory. Benchmark videocards performance analysis: PassMark - G3D Mark, PassMark - G2D Mark.

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2

NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR

Differences

Reasons to consider the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2

Videocard is newer: launch date 8 year(s) 7 month(s) later
5.5x more core clock speed: 660 MHz vs 120 MHz
A newer manufacturing process allows for a more powerful, yet cooler running videocard: 55 nm vs 220 nm
32x more maximum memory size: 2x 512 MB vs 32 MB
5.7x more memory clock speed: 1700 MHz vs 300 MHz
95.6x better performance in PassMark - G3D Mark: 478 vs 5

Specifications (specs)
Launch date	1 September 2008 vs 1 February 2000
Core clock speed	660 MHz vs 120 MHz
Manufacturing process technology	55 nm vs 220 nm
Maximum memory size	2x 512 MB vs 32 MB
Memory clock speed	1700 MHz vs 300 MHz
Benchmarks
PassMark - G3D Mark	478 vs 5

Reasons to consider the NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR

2.3x more texture fill rate: 480 MTexel / s vs 2x 10.56 GTexel / s billion / sec
Around 7% better performance in PassMark - G2D Mark: 201 vs 187

Specifications (specs)
Texture fill rate	480 MTexel / s vs 2x 10.56 GTexel / s billion / sec
Benchmarks
PassMark - G2D Mark	201 vs 187

Compare benchmarks

GPU 1: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2
GPU 2: NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR

PassMark - G3D Mark

GPU 1

GPU 2

478

PassMark - G2D Mark

GPU 1

GPU 2

187

201

Name	ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2	NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR
PassMark - G3D Mark	478	5
PassMark - G2D Mark	187	201

Compare specifications (specs)

	ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2	NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR
Essentials
Architecture	TeraScale	Celsius
Code name	M88	NV10 A3
Launch date	1 September 2008	1 February 2000
Place in performance rating	879	882
Type	Laptop	Desktop
Technical info
Core clock speed	660 MHz	120 MHz
Floating-point performance	2x 422.4 gflops
Manufacturing process technology	55 nm	220 nm
Pipelines	640
Texture fill rate	2x 10.56 GTexel / s billion / sec	480 MTexel / s
Thermal Design Power (TDP)	110 Watt
Transistor count	666 million	17 million
Video outputs and ports
Display Connectors	No outputs	1x VGA
Compatibility, dimensions and requirements
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	AGP 4x
Laptop size	large
Supplementary power connectors		None
API support
DirectX	10.1	7.0
OpenGL	3.3	1.2
Memory
Maximum RAM amount	2x 512 MB	32 MB
Memory bandwidth	2x 54.4 GB / s	4.8 GB / s
Memory bus width	256 Bit	128 Bit
Memory clock speed	1700 MHz	300 MHz
Memory type	GDDR3	DDR
Shared memory	0