Radeon 540 vs Radeon HD 6850M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon 540 and Radeon HD 6850M, 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 Radeon 540 stacks up against Radeon HD 6850M, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 6850M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon HD 6850M is only used in laptop graphics. It has 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 Radeon HD 6850M here:

Main Specs

  Radeon 540 Radeon HD 6850M
Power consumption (TDP) 50 Watt 50 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x8 PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None
Memory type GDDR5 DDR3, GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 1 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort No outputs
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  • Both graphics cards have the same power consumption of 50 Watt.
  • Radeon 540 is connected by PCIe 3.0 x8, and Radeon HD 6850M uses PCIe 2.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon 540 has 1 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 6850M.
  • Radeon 540 is used in Desktops, and Radeon HD 6850M - in Laptops.
  • Radeon 540 is build with GCN 4.0 architecture, and Radeon HD 6850M - with Terascale 2.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon 540 is 525 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6850M.
  • Radeon 540 is manufactured by 14 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 6850M - by 40 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon 540 is 6200 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6850M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 6−7 2−3
ultra / 1080p 3−4 0−1
QHD / 1440p 0−1 0−1
low / 720p 14−16 12−14
medium / 1080p 7−8 3−4
The average gaming FPS of Radeon 540 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 50% more, than Radeon HD 6850M.

Full Specs

  Radeon 540 Radeon HD 6850M
Architecture GCN 4.0 Terascale 2
Code name Lexa Granville Pro/LP
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 26 March 2019 6 January 2011
Pipelines 512 800
Core clock speed 1100 MHz 575 / 675 MHz
Boost Clock 1124 MHz
Transistor count 2,200 million 1,040 million
Manufacturing process technology 14 nm 40 nm
Texture fill rate 35.97 27.00
Floating-point performance 1,080.0 gflops
Length 145 mm
Memory bus width 64 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 7000 MHz 800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 56 GB/s 25.6 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 12 (12_0) 11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model 6.4 5.0
OpenGL 4.6 4.4
OpenCL 2.0 1.2
Vulkan 1.2.131 N/A
Laptop size large
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