GeForce Go 7900 GS vs ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking1176not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency1.35no data
ArchitectureTeraScale (2005−2013)Curie (2003−2013)
GPU code nameM88G71
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date4 June 2008 (16 years ago)18 April 2006 (18 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 cores32027
Core clock speed580 MHz375 MHz
Boost clock speedno data375 MHz
Number of transistors666 million278 million
Manufacturing process technology55 nm90 nm
Power consumption (TDP)35 Watt20 Watt
Texture fill rate9.2807.500
Floating-point processing power0.3712 TFLOPSno data
ROPs1616
TMUs1620

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 sizelargelarge
InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16MXM-II

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 typeGDDR3GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount512 MB512 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit256 Bit
Memory clock speed750 MHz500 MHz
Memory bandwidth48 GB/s32 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 ConnectorsNo outputsNo outputs

API compatibility

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

DirectX10.1 (10_1)9.0c (9_3)
Shader Model4.13.0
OpenGL3.32.1
OpenCLN/AN/A
VulkanN/AN/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 4 June 2008 18 April 2006
Chip lithography 55 nm 90 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 35 Watt 20 Watt

ATI Mobility HD 3850 has an age advantage of 2 years, and a 63.6% more advanced lithography process.

Go 7900 GS, on the other hand, has 75% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Mobility Radeon HD 3850 and GeForce Go 7900 GS. 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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ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850
Mobility Radeon HD 3850
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS
GeForce Go 7900 GS

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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Questions & comments

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