Quadro NVS 160M vs ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking1174not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency1.34no data
ArchitectureTeraScale (2005−2013)Tesla (2006−2010)
GPU code nameM88G98
Market segmentLaptopMobile workstation
Release date4 June 2008 (16 years ago)15 August 2008 (16 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 cores3208
Core clock speed580 MHz580 MHz
Number of transistors666 million210 million
Manufacturing process technology55 nm65 nm
Power consumption (TDP)35 Watt12 Watt
Texture fill rate9.2804.640
Floating-point processing power0.3712 TFLOPS0.0232 TFLOPS
ROPs164
TMUs168

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 sizelargeno data
InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16MXM-I

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 MB256 MB
Memory bus width256 Bit64 Bit
Memory clock speed750 MHz700 MHz
Memory bandwidth48 GB/s11.2 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 ConnectorsNo outputsNo outputs

API compatibility

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

DirectX10.1 (10_1)11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model4.14.0
OpenGL3.33.3
OpenCLN/A1.1
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA-1.1

Pros & cons summary


Recency 4 June 2008 15 August 2008
Maximum RAM amount 512 MB 256 MB
Chip lithography 55 nm 65 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 35 Watt 12 Watt

ATI Mobility HD 3850 has a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 18.2% more advanced lithography process.

NVS 160M, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 2 months, and 191.7% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Mobility Radeon HD 3850 and Quadro NVS 160M. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Mobility Radeon HD 3850 is a notebook graphics card while Quadro NVS 160M is a mobile workstation one.


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

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850
Mobility Radeon HD 3850
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M
Quadro NVS 160M

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


1 1 vote

Rate Mobility Radeon HD 3850 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
3 23 votes

Rate Quadro NVS 160M on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.