Mobility HD 5870 vs GTX 285M AVADirect Clevo W860CU laptop benchmark review

An interesting review from the anandtech.com guys comparing Mobility HD 5870 from ATI and GTX 285M from Nvidia installed in the AVADirect Clevo W860CU laptop .

One of the benefits of reviewing desktop hardware is the way PCs tend to come together like a combination of Lego bricks. Individual components are typically fairly easy to test against each other, often requiring as little as a simple swap. While notebooks have made great strides in becoming more customizable, testing mobile video hardware can still be a mess. That's why we're fortunate that Clevo produces a notebook capable of supporting top-of-the-line graphics solutions from both AMD and NVIDIA camps, and we're doubly fortunate that AVADirect was kind enough to send us not one but two of their builds based on the Clevo W860CU.

These laptops are configured absolutely identically except for a crucial difference: one is equipped with NVIDIA's flagship GeForce GTX 285M, and the other with AMD's flagship Mobility Radeon HD 5870. These are the fastest (current) single chip mobile graphics solutions from either vendor. NVIDIA just announced their upcoming GeForce GTX 480M, which will boost performance (and power consumption) and very likely take a clear lead over today's combatants, but we'll hold off on saying more about the 480M until we can actually get one for testing.

AVADirect Clevo W860CU Specifications
Processor	Intel Core i7 820QM (4x1.73GHz, 45nm, 8MB L3, Turbo to 3GHz, 45W)
Memory	2x2GB DDR3-1333 (Max 2x4GB)
Graphics	ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 (800 Stream Processors, 750MHz/4GHz Core/RAM clocks) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285M 1GB GDDR3 (128 CUDA Cores, 576MHz/1.5GHz/2GHz Core/Shader/RAM clocks)
Display	15.6" LED Glossy 16:9 1080p (1920x1080)
Hard Drive(s)	Corsair 128GB Nova Series SSD
Optical Drive	Blu-ray and DVD+/-RW Drive
Battery	3-Cell, 12V, 42Wh battery
Operating System	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Pricing	$2477.12 (Radeon HD 5870) $2555.60 (GTX 285M) as configured from AVADirect

Laptop Pictures:

 ATI Mobility HD 5870

Specifications:

    * Engine clock speed: 700 MHz
    * Processing power (single precision): 1.12 TeraFLOPS
    * Polygon throughput: 700M polygons/sec
    * Data fetch rate (32-bit): 112 billion fetches/sec
    * Texel fill rate (bilinear filtered): 28 Gigatexels/sec
    * Pixel fill rate: 11.2 Gigapixels/sec
    * Anti-aliased pixel fill rate: 44.8 Gigasamples/sec
    * Memory clock speed: 1.0 GHz
    * Memory data rate: 4.0 Gbps
    * Memory bandwidth: 64 GB/sec
    * TDP: 50 Watts

Nvidia Geforce GTX 285M

Overview:

GeForce GTX 285M is NVIDIA’s fastest notebook GPU for extreme gamers.

Simply the Fastest
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 285M notebook GPUs deliver blistering fast framerates for the most intense gaming experience.

Real-World Gaming Effects
Gaming is becoming more and more realistic. NVIDIA® PhysX™ technology enables a totally new class of physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic gaming experience – filled with lifelike explosions, natural water, and cloth that drapes and tears naturally.

Specifications:

GeForce GTX 285M is NVIDIA’s fastest notebook GPU for extreme gamers.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin images used with permission from Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. ™ & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Simply the Fastest NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 285M notebook GPUs deliver blistering fast framerates for the most intense gaming experience. Real-World Gaming Effects Gaming is becoming more and more realistic. NVIDIA® PhysX™ technology enables a totally new class of physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic gaming experience – filled with lifelike explosions, natural water, and cloth that drapes and tears naturally.

Transcode Your Videos 10x Faster What else can you do with GeForce GTX 285M mobile GPU besides gaming? NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology unlocks the power of the GPU’s processor cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks - such as video transcoding – delivering incredible performance improvements over traditional CPUs. Vibrant Multimedia Bring the latest Blu-ray movies to life with NVIDIA® PureVideo® HD technology. Sharp images, smooth video transitions, and vibrant colors are reproduced on screen using very little power.

Mirror's Edge™ image captured on NVIDIA GPU. Provided by Electronic Arts.

Battery to Last. And Last. NVIDIA is the pioneer in advancing low power visual computing for notebooks. NVIDIA® HybridPower™ technology unleashes graphics performance when you need it, or switches to a lower power integrated GPU for longer battery life. Direct Notebook Drivers Get the most capability and performance from your notebook with NVIDIA Verde™ direct notebook drivers from NVIDIA.com. Always be up-to-date with the latest games and apps. Includes support for manufacturer hotkeys, so you won’t lose any of your notebook specific settings.

• PhysX-Ready
  GeForce GPU support for NVIDIA^® PhysX™ technology, enabling a totally new class of physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience with GeForce.
• SLI Technology
  Industry leading NVIDIA^® SLI^® technology enables two GeForce GPUs to run in parallel, offering up to 2x performance scaling on today’s hottest games.
• CUDA Technology
  NVIDIA^® CUDA™ technology unlocks the power of the GPU’s processor cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks - such as video transcoding – delivering incredible performance improvements over traditional CPUs.
• PureVideo HD Technology
  Bring the latest Blu-ray movies to life with NVIDIA^® PureVideo^® HD technology. Sharp images, smooth video transitions, and vibrant colors are reproduced on the screen using very little power. Integrated with the leading HD movie software players, PureVideo HD does the video decoding, instead of the power-hungry CPU, extending your battery life, reducing fan noise and freeing the CPU for multitasking, so you never miss a scene.
• Hybrid SLI Technology
  NVIDIA^® Hybrid SLI^® technology delivers multi-GPU benefits when an NVIDIA motherboard GPU is combined with an NVIDIA discrete GPU. With this GeForce GPU, the essential benefit of this technology is the ability to extend the life of your battery considerably with HybridPower.
• HybridPower Technology
  NVIDIA^® HybridPower™ technology is a key feature of Hybrid SLI, allowing you to unleash graphics performance when you need it, or instantly switch gears to a lower power mode from the motherboard GPU for longer battery life and quieter operation. This reduces system power consumption dramatically and extends battery life up to 50% longer.
• Dedicated Display Interfaces for Every Display
  Direct output from GeForce to notebook LCD, HDMI displays, DisplayPort displays, and standard VGA monitors allow you to do your work, play games, or watch movies wherever you like.
• nView Multi-Display Technology
  NVIDIA^® nView^® allows you to do more at one time by supporting two displays so you can see more information and applications. Connecting external DVI, HDMI 1.3, Display Port 1.1, and VGA displays is as easy as plugging in the monitor. You can choose “clone mode” to display the same image on both the notebook screen and the external display for presentations or “dual view mode” to turn both displays into one huge screen.
• PowerMizer Intelligent Power Management
  Consider PowerMizer your battery’s guardian angel. With leading-edge power monitor circuitry, NVIDIA^® PowerMizer^® intelligently tailors GeForce GPU power demands to suit the task at hand. Just running simple business applications or surfing the web, PowerMizer will run the GPU in battery-sipping mode. Are you in the mood for an HD video or a thrilling DirectX 10^® game? PowerMizer will automatically apply the appropriate amount of power to the GPU.

Main | Features

GPU Engine Specs:

CUDA Cores	128
Gigaflops	576
Processor Clock (MHz)	1500 MHz
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec)	38

Memory Specs:

Memory Clock (MHz)	Up to 1020
Standard Memory Config	1  GB GDDR3
Memory Interface Width	256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)	61
MXM Type	MXM 3.0 Type-B

Feature Support:

NVIDIA SLI®-ready	2-Way
NVIDIA PureVideo® Technology	HD
NVIDIA PhysX™-ready	yes
NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology	yes
HybridPower™ Technology	yes
Microsoft DirectX	10
OpenGL	2.1
Bus Support	PCI-E 2.0
Certified for Windows 7
PowerMizer Power Management	8.0

 Benchmark Tests

full rev.