GeForce GTS 250M vs ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850

Place in the ranking	1171	991
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Power efficiency	1.35	3.55
Architecture	TeraScale (2005−2013)	Tesla 2.0 (2007−2013)
GPU code name	M88	GT215
Market segment	Laptop	Laptop
Release date	4 June 2008 (16 years ago)	15 June 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	96
Core clock speed	580 MHz	500 MHz
Number of transistors	666 million	727 million
Manufacturing process technology	55 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	35 Watt	28 Watt
Texture fill rate	9.280	16.00
Floating-point processing power	0.3712 TFLOPS	0.24 TFLOPS
Gigaflops	no data	360
ROPs	16	8
TMUs	16	32

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	large
Bus support	no data	PCI-E 2.0
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16
SLI options	-	+
MXM Type	no data	MXM 3.0 Type-B

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	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	1 GB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	128 Bit
Memory clock speed	750 MHz	Up to 2000 MHz
Memory bandwidth	48 GB/s	51.2 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	HDMIVGALVDSSingle Link DVIDisplayPortDual Link DVI
HDMI	-	+
Maximum VGA resolution	no data	2048x1536

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

Power management

no data

8.0

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	10.1 (10_1)	11.1 (10_1)
Shader Model	4.1	4.1
OpenGL	3.3	2.1
OpenCL	N/A	1.1
Vulkan	N/A	N/A
CUDA	-	+

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

ATI Mobility HD 3850 0.68

GTS 250M 1.43
+110%

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

ATI Mobility HD 3850 1880

GTS 250M 3659
+94.7%

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

Full HD

12−14

−133%

28
+133%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

3−4

−33.3%

4−5
+33.3%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	4−5 −50%	6−7 +50%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	3−4 −33.3%	4−5 +33.3%
Cyberpunk 2077	3−4 −33.3%	4−5 +33.3%
Far Cry New Dawn	1−2 −200%	3−4 +200%
Hitman 3	5−6 −20%	6−7 +20%
Horizon Zero Dawn	10−12 −36.4%	14−16 +36.4%
Red Dead Redemption 2	0−1	2−3
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	6−7 −33.3%	8−9 +33.3%
Watch Dogs: Legion	30−33 −10%	30−35 +10%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	4−5 −50%	6−7 +50%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	3−4 −33.3%	4−5 +33.3%
Cyberpunk 2077	3−4 −33.3%	4−5 +33.3%
Far Cry New Dawn	1−2 −200%	3−4 +200%
Hitman 3	5−6 −20%	6−7 +20%
Horizon Zero Dawn	10−12 −36.4%	14−16 +36.4%
Red Dead Redemption 2	0−1	2−3
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	6−7 −33.3%	8−9 +33.3%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	10−11 −10%	10−12 +10%
Watch Dogs: Legion	30−33 −10%	30−35 +10%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	4−5 −50%	6−7 +50%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	3−4 −33.3%	4−5 +33.3%
Cyberpunk 2077	3−4 −33.3%	4−5 +33.3%
Hitman 3	5−6 −20%	6−7 +20%
Horizon Zero Dawn	10−12 −36.4%	14−16 +36.4%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	6−7 −33.3%	8−9 +33.3%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	10−11 −10%	10−12 +10%
Watch Dogs: Legion	30−33 −10%	30−35 +10%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

0−1

2−3

1440p
High Preset

Far Cry New Dawn

1−2

−100%

2−3
+100%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	0−1	1−2
Cyberpunk 2077	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Far Cry 5	1−2 −100%	2−3 +100%
Hitman 3	6−7 −16.7%	7−8 +16.7%
Horizon Zero Dawn	3−4 −66.7%	5−6 +66.7%
Watch Dogs: Legion	2−3 −250%	7−8 +250%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

3−4

−33.3%

4−5
+33.3%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	0−1	1−2

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

2−3

−50%

3−4
+50%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Far Cry 5	2−3 +0%	2−3 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%

Full HD
High Preset

Far Cry 5	2−3 +0%	2−3 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Far Cry 5	2−3 +0%	2−3 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5

2−3

+0%

2−3

+0%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	0−1	0−1
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%

4K
High Preset

Far Cry New Dawn

1−2

+0%

1−2

+0%

4K
Ultra Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	0−1	0−1
Far Cry 5	0−1	0−1

This is how ATI Mobility HD 3850 and GTS 250M compete in popular games:

GTS 250M is 133% faster in 1080p

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

in Watch Dogs: Legion, with 1440p resolution and the Ultra Preset, the GTS 250M is 250% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

GTS 250M is ahead in 33 tests (75%)
there's a draw in 11 tests (25%)

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	0.68	1.43
Recency	4 June 2008	15 June 2009
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	1 GB
Chip lithography	55 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	35 Watt	28 Watt

GTS 250M has a 110.3% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 1 year, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 37.5% more advanced lithography process, and 25% lower power consumption.

The GeForce GTS 250M is our recommended choice as it beats the Mobility Radeon HD 3850 in performance tests.

Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.