Mobility Radeon Vs. GeForce M: The CrossFire Advantage

By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Nvidia sells the fastest mobile graphics processor you can buy, but notebook manufactures can fit two of AMD’s top modules in in the same space. Eurocom’s X8100 Leopard answers the question: can two Mobility Radeon HD 5870 modules beat a single GTX 480M?

Power And Battery Life

One of the big advantages Eurocom cites for the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 CrossFire configuration is its 55 W TDP per card, compared to 100 W TDP for a single GeForce GTX 480M. The idea is that you can get a performance gain greater than 10% from a power gain of less than 10%, while simultaneously improving thermal characteristics by spreading the heat across multiple die.

Yet we’re fairly certain that those TDP numbers are for the GPU, not the entire card, and that AMD and Nvidia use different methods to determine TDP. Rather than dwell on rated specs, a closer look at actual power consumption is needed.

The single GeForce GTX 480M configuration falls between the single- and dual-Mobility Radeon configurations in power consumption. That means the CrossFire configuration uses far more than 10% additional power compared to the single GTX 480M. That power is converted to heat, so Eurocom’s decision to forgo an SLI configuration appears wise.

The GeForce GTX 480M does have lower idle power, which makes it a slightly better choice for non-gaming on-the-go tasks like checking email.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
61 Comments Comment from the forums
  • lashton
    the fermio acrh. cant compete against ATI in the mobile market simply because of design implementations, its physically larger, its an OK review if the nVidia card was faster there would have been more review about it
    Reply
  • lunyone
    Shocker here! NOT! This wasn't anything new, but it's nice to see it all spelled out and on paper (benchmarks). Just think you can have a single 5870 (mobile) chip that produces about 90-95% of the 480 GPU for about 70% of the price?? I know where I'd put my $ if I had it to spend.
    Reply
  • tony singh
    The reason nvidia price is higher is because making geforces is more expensive than making radeons, nvidia needs more transistors to reach or beat amd level, hence we can say that hd 5xxx is considerably more efficient than gtx400.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    tony singhThe reason nvidia price is higher is because making geforces is more expensive than making radeonsAnd we saw how that worked out in the auto industry for General Motors. A company must base its prices on worth, not cost.
    Reply
  • dEAne
    Nvidia is always an expensive video technology.
    Reply
  • "...but notebook manufactures can fit two of AMD’s top modules in in the same space."

    This affirms it, Fermi is a FAT joke...
    Reply
  • ggman
    nice review, nothing shocking though we all know the GTX480M is a downclocked GTX465 and the HD5870M is an underclocked 5770. thumbs up for Ati but lets see how will the new Mobile GPUs from nvidia hold up :)
    Reply
  • alidan
    CrashmanAnd we saw how that worked out in the auto industry for General Motors. A company must base its prices on worth, not cost.
    now correct me if im wrong, and i may as well be. but chips, as in the cpu, gpu, anything that takes massive r&d costs, cost almost noting to make, in the big picture.

    intel so long as they have the fastest processor with little to no competition, prices there products, that may cost in total materials and man hours, maybe 50$ at most, and sells them for 1000$ each to recup the plants cost to manufacture, and the r&d. and if any of the rummors during the femri are to be believed, they had ALLOT to recupe and they need to do it somewhere, with amd pricing lower than they do for close to if not better preforming cards (in the price range) desktop isn't making them there money back fast. so why not gaming laptop where you have less of a choice what goes in.

    thats just my opinion though
    Reply
  • liquidsnake718
    Yes, some more face time for te 5850!

    It just shows the true manufactoring win that AMD/ATi has accomplished in the past year with such a cool and low power GPU in the cypress and the rest of the radeon 5xxx class. With low heat and TDP requirments, AMD can also take the crown for mobile gaming. Im sure this also helps a tad in the battery life, however we have yet to see crazy gaming laptops hit the 2plus hour mark for movies and games. This is a shame because the first one that can lastat least 3 hours on its highest settings will be a true winner for those looking to spend a wad of cash on a mobile system that can rival midstream desktops.

    I cant help but laugh as my system is now a "mid-level" system and is comparable lthough not better than a laptop!

    Keep these reviews going as they are interesting hen comparing two products in different categories. Maybe we can also see those 12inch ion netbooks vs low end gaming laptops.

    guess crossfire on mobile platforms
    Reply
  • doron
    Always a pleasure to read your reviews Thomas :)
    Reply