GeForce GTX 980M vs Radeon HD 7850M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 980M and Radeon HD 7850M, 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 980M stacks up against Radeon HD 7850M, check out specs charts below.

GeForce GTX 980M and Radeon HD 7850M are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: GeForce GTX 980M and Radeon HD 7850M are only used in laptop graphics. They have lower GPU clock speed compared to the desktop variant, which results in lower power consumption, but also 10-30% lower gaming performance. Check available laptop models with GeForce GTX 980M or Radeon HD 7850M here:

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 980M Radeon HD 7850M
Power consumption (TDP) 40 Watt
Interface MXM-B (3.0) PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 8 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs No outputs
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  • GeForce GTX 980M is connected by MXM-B (3.0), and Radeon HD 7850M uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • GeForce GTX 980M has 6 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 7850M.
  • Both cards are used in Laptops.
  • GeForce GTX 980M is build with Maxwell architecture, and Radeon HD 7850M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of GeForce GTX 980M is 363 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7850M.
  • GeForce GTX 980M and Radeon HD 7850M are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7850M is 1500 MHz higher, than GeForce GTX 980M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 35−40 6−7
ultra / 1080p 24−27 3−4
QHD / 1440p 18−20 0−1
4K / 2160p 10−11
low / 720p 60−65 14−16
medium / 1080p 45−50 7−8
The average gaming FPS of GeForce GTX 980M in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 437% more, than Radeon HD 7850M.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 980M Radeon HD 7850M
Architecture Maxwell GCN
Code name GM204 Heathrow Pro
Type Laptop Laptop
Release date 7 October 2014 24 April 2012
Pipelines 1536 640
Core clock speed 1038 MHz 675 MHz
Boost Clock 1127 MHz
Transistor count 5,200 million 1,500 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 51.84 27.00
Floating-point performance 3,462 gflops 864.0 gflops
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 2500 MHz 4000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 160 GB/s 64 GB/s
Shared memory - -
G-SYNC support +
DirectX 12 (12_1) 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 6.4 5.1
OpenGL 4.5 4.6
OpenCL 1.1 1.2
Vulkan 1.1.126 1.2.131
CUDA +
CUDA cores 1536
Bus support PCI Express 3.0
SLI options +
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 383 Mh/s
Laptop size large large
DisplayPort Multimode (DP++) support +
H.264, VC1, MPEG2 1080p video decoder +
Optimus +
GameStream +
GeForce ShadowPlay +
GPU Boost 2.0
GameWorks +
BatteryBoost +
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