GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 6850

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 260 and Radeon HD 6850, there are a couple of things to consider. Cards with more VRAM in general perform better and allow you to play on higher graphics settings. Size also makes a difference. A model with a large heatsink can occupy up to three expansion slots on a motherboard. Be sure you have enough room in your PC case. When comparing GPUs with different architectures, more processing cores and even higher TFLOPS will not always translate to better performance. To help you decide which GPU you need, we have measured frame rates in a number of popular games. For more on how the GeForce GTX 260 stacks up against Radeon HD 6850, check out specs charts below.

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 260 Radeon HD 6850
Power consumption (TDP) 182 Watt 127 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin 1x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR3 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 896 MB 1 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x S-Video 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
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  • GeForce GTX 260 has 43% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 6850.
  • Both video cards are using PCIe 2.0 x16 interface connection to a motherboard.
  • GeForce GTX 260 has 895 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 6850.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • GeForce GTX 260 is build with Tesla 2.0 architecture, and Radeon HD 6850 - with TeraScale 2.
  • GeForce GTX 260 is manufactured by 65 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 6850 - by 40 nm process technology.
  • Radeon HD 6850 is 188 mm longer, than GeForce GTX 260.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 3−4 9−10
ultra / 1080p 1−2 5−6
QHD / 1440p 0−1 0−1
low / 720p 14−16 21−24
medium / 1080p 5−6 12−14
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 6850 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 100% more, than GeForce GTX 260.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 260 Radeon HD 6850
Architecture Tesla 2.0 TeraScale 2
Code name GT200 Barts
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 16 June 2008 21 October 2010
Pipelines 192 960
Core clock speed 1242 MHz
Transistor count 1,400 million 1,700 million
Manufacturing process technology 65 nm 40 nm
Texture fill rate 36.9 billion/sec 37.20
Floating-point performance 476.9 gflops 1,488.0 gflops
Length 10.5" (267 mm) (26.7 cm) 198 mm
Memory bus width 448 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 999 MHz
Memory bandwidth 111.9 GB/s 128.0 GB/s
DirectX 11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model 4.0 5.0
OpenGL 2.1 4.4
OpenCL 1.1 1.2
Vulkan N/A
CUDA +
CUDA cores 192
Bus support AGP
Height 4.376" (111 mm) (11.1 cm)
SLI options +
Multi monitor support +
HDMI +
Maximum VGA resolution 2048x1536
Audio input for HDMI S/PDIF
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 30 Mh/s 139 Mh/s
Eyefinity +
Design reference
CrossFire +
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