GeForce GT 540M vs ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850

VS

Aggregate performance score

We've compared Mobility Radeon HD 5850 and GeForce GT 540M, covering specs and all relevant benchmarks.

ATI Mobility HD 5850
2010
1 GB GDDR5, 30 Watt
1.91
+54%

ATI Mobility HD 5850 outperforms GT 540M by an impressive 54% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

Primary details

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

Place in the ranking9051040
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Power efficiency4.442.47
ArchitectureTeraScale 2 (2009−2015)Fermi (2010−2014)
GPU code nameBroadwayGF108
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date7 January 2010 (14 years ago)5 January 2011 (13 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 cores80096
Core clock speed500 MHz672 MHz
Number of transistors1,040 million585 million
Manufacturing process technology40 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)30 Watt35 Watt
Texture fill rate20.0010.75
Floating-point processing power0.8 TFLOPS0.258 TFLOPS
ROPs164
TMUs4016

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-A (3.0)

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 typeGDDR5DDR3
Maximum RAM amount1 GB2 GB
Memory bus width128 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1000 MHz900 MHz
Memory bandwidth64 GB/s28.8 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

Supported technologies

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

3D Blu-Ray-+
3D Gaming-+
Optimus-+

API compatibility

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

DirectX11.2 (11_0)12 API
Shader Model5.05.1
OpenGL4.44.5
OpenCL1.21.1
VulkanN/AN/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 5850 1.91
+54%
GT 540M 1.24

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 5850 5592
+28.4%
GT 540M 4355

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:

900p19
+18.8%
16
−18.8%
Full HD24
+20%
20
−20%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 4−5
+33.3%
3−4
−33.3%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 7−8
+16.7%
6−7
−16.7%
Battlefield 5 1−2 0−1
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 5−6
+25%
4−5
−25%
Cyberpunk 2077 4−5
+33.3%
3−4
−33.3%
Far Cry 5 3−4
+200%
1−2
−200%
Far Cry New Dawn 5−6
+66.7%
3−4
−66.7%
Forza Horizon 4 8−9
+300%
2−3
−300%
Hitman 3 7−8
+16.7%
6−7
−16.7%
Horizon Zero Dawn 18−20
+28.6%
14−16
−28.6%
Red Dead Redemption 2 4−5
+100%
2−3
−100%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 10−11
+25%
8−9
−25%
Watch Dogs: Legion 35−40
+6.1%
30−35
−6.1%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 7−8
+16.7%
6−7
−16.7%
Battlefield 5 1−2 0−1
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 5−6
+25%
4−5
−25%
Cyberpunk 2077 4−5
+33.3%
3−4
−33.3%
Far Cry 5 3−4
+200%
1−2
−200%
Far Cry New Dawn 5−6
+66.7%
3−4
−66.7%
Forza Horizon 4 8−9
+300%
2−3
−300%
Hitman 3 7−8
+16.7%
6−7
−16.7%
Horizon Zero Dawn 18−20
+28.6%
14−16
−28.6%
Red Dead Redemption 2 4−5
+100%
2−3
−100%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 10−11
+25%
8−9
−25%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 12−14
+9.1%
10−12
−9.1%
Watch Dogs: Legion 35−40
+6.1%
30−35
−6.1%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 7−8
+16.7%
6−7
−16.7%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 5−6
+25%
4−5
−25%
Cyberpunk 2077 4−5
+33.3%
3−4
−33.3%
Far Cry 5 3−4
+200%
1−2
−200%
Forza Horizon 4 8−9
+300%
2−3
−300%
Hitman 3 7−8
+16.7%
6−7
−16.7%
Horizon Zero Dawn 18−20
+28.6%
14−16
−28.6%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 10−11
+25%
8−9
−25%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 12−14
+9.1%
10−12
−9.1%
Watch Dogs: Legion 35−40
+6.1%
30−35
−6.1%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 4−5
+100%
2−3
−100%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5 3−4
+200%
1−2
−200%
Far Cry New Dawn 3−4
+50%
2−3
−50%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 2−3
+100%
1−2
−100%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1−2 0−1
Cyberpunk 2077 1−2
+0%
1−2
+0%
Far Cry 5 2−3
+100%
1−2
−100%
Hitman 3 7−8
+0%
7−8
+0%
Horizon Zero Dawn 6−7
+50%
4−5
−50%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 1−2 0−1
Watch Dogs: Legion 10−12
+83.3%
6−7
−83.3%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 5−6
+25%
4−5
−25%

4K
High Preset

Far Cry New Dawn 1−2 0−1

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 2−3
+100%
1−2
−100%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 1−2
+0%
1−2
+0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 0−1 0−1
Far Cry 5 1−2 0−1
Watch Dogs: Legion 0−1 0−1

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 3−4
+0%
3−4
+0%

This is how ATI Mobility HD 5850 and GT 540M compete in popular games:

  • ATI Mobility HD 5850 is 19% faster in 900p
  • ATI Mobility HD 5850 is 20% faster in 1080p

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

  • in Forza Horizon 4, with 1080p resolution and the Medium Preset, the ATI Mobility HD 5850 is 300% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

  • ATI Mobility HD 5850 is ahead in 43 tests (91%)
  • there's a draw in 4 tests (9%)

Pros & cons summary


Performance score 1.91 1.24
Recency 7 January 2010 5 January 2011
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2 GB
Power consumption (TDP) 30 Watt 35 Watt

ATI Mobility HD 5850 has a 54% higher aggregate performance score, and 16.7% lower power consumption.

GT 540M, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 11 months, and a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount.

The Mobility Radeon HD 5850 is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce GT 540M in performance tests.


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 5850
Mobility Radeon HD 5850
NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M
GeForce GT 540M

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.


4 12 votes

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3.4 905 votes

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Questions & comments

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