GeForce GT 120M vs ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 1183 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Architecture | RV6xx (2007−2010) | G9x (2007−2010) |
| GPU code name | M88 | N10P-GV1 |
| Market segment | Laptop | Laptop |
| Release date | 1 December 2007 (16 years ago) | 11 February 2009 (15 years ago) |
Detailed specifications
General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 320 | 32 |
| Core clock speed | 580 MHz | 500 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 666 million | 314 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 55 nm | 55 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 55 Watt | 23 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 9.280 | 8.000 |
| Floating-point processing power | 0.3712 gflops | 0.08 gflops |
| ROPs | 16 | 8 |
| TMUs | 16 | 16 |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Laptop size | large | medium sized |
| Interface | PCIe 2.0 x16 | PCIe 2.0 x16 |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | GDDR3 | GDDR2, GDDR3 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 128 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 750 MHz | 1000 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 48 GB/s | 16 GB/s |
| Shared memory | - | - |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.
| Display Connectors | No outputs | No outputs |
API compatibility
List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 10.1 (10_1) | 11.1 (10_0) |
| Shader Model | 4.1 | 4.0 |
| OpenGL | 3.3 | 3.3 |
| OpenCL | N/A | 1.1 |
| Vulkan | N/A | N/A |
| CUDA | - | 1.1 |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 1 December 2007 | 11 February 2009 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 55 Watt | 23 Watt |
GT 120M has an age advantage of 1 year, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and 139.1% lower power consumption.
We couldn't decide between Mobility Radeon HD 3850 and GeForce GT 120M. We've got no test results to judge.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
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