Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon HD 7850

In this comparison between Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 7850 you will find out which graphics card performs better in today's games. Bear in mind that third-party versions may have more efficient cooling and higher clock speeds. This will increase cards' performance, though not by much. In addition to raw power you should also take into account the dimensions. Thicker models simply will not fit into a small mini-ITX case. The resolution of your monitor also affects the choice, since 4K gameplay requires a more powerful GPU. And don't overspend on the graphics card. Other parts of your build may also need to be upgraded, save some money for the CPU or power supply. For some people Radeon HD 5850 will be the best choice, for others Radeon HD 7850 will be their preference. Study the comparison tables below and make your choice.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 5850 Radeon HD 7850
Power consumption (TDP) 151 Watt 225 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin 1x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 7850 has 49% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 5850.
  • Radeon HD 5850 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 7850 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 7850 has 1 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 5850.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 5850 is build with Terascale 2 architecture, and Radeon HD 7850 - with GCN 1.0.
  • Radeon HD 5850 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 7850 - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Radeon HD 5850 is 31 mm longer, than Radeon HD 7850.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 5850 is 800 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7850.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 9−10 18−20
ultra / 1080p 5−6 10−12
QHD / 1440p 0−1 5−6
4K / 2160p 4−5
low / 720p 21−24 35−40
medium / 1080p 12−14 24−27
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7850 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 91% more, than Radeon HD 5850.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 5850 Radeon HD 7850
Architecture Terascale 2 GCN 1.0
Code name Cypress Pitcairn
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 30 September 2009 5 March 2012
Pipelines 1440 1024
Core clock speed 725 MHz
Boost Clock 1000 MHz
Transistor count 2,154 million 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 52.20 55.04
Floating-point performance 2,088.0 gflops 1,761 gflops
Length 241 mm 210 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 2000 MHz 1200 MHz
Memory bandwidth 128.0 GB/s 153.6 GB/s
DirectX 11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model 5.0 5.1
OpenGL 4.4 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan N/A
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 2.1 x16
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 249 Mh/s
Eyefinity +
Design reference
CrossFire +
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 12.5 Mh/s
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