Radeon HD 6790 vs Radeon HD 6850M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 6790 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 HD 6790 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 HD 6790 Radeon HD 6850M
Power consumption (TDP) 150 Watt 50 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR5 DDR3, GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 1 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 6790 has 200% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 6850M.
  • Both video cards are using PCIe 2.0 x16 interface connection to a motherboard.
  • Radeon HD 6790 and Radeon HD 6850M have maximum RAM of 1 GB.
  • Radeon HD 6790 is used in Desktops, and Radeon HD 6850M - in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 6790 and Radeon HD 6850M are build with Terascale 2 architecture.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon HD 6790 is 265 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6850M.
  • Radeon HD 6790 and Radeon HD 6850M are manufactured by 40 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 6790 is 250 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6850M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 7−8 2−3
ultra / 1080p 4−5 0−1
QHD / 1440p 0−1 0−1
low / 720p 18−20 12−14
medium / 1080p 9−10 3−4
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 6790 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 100% more, than Radeon HD 6850M.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6790 Radeon HD 6850M
Architecture Terascale 2 Terascale 2
Code name Barts Granville Pro/LP
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 4 April 2011 6 January 2011
Pipelines 800 800
Core clock speed 840 MHz 575 / 675 MHz
Transistor count 1,700 million 1,040 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 40 nm
Texture fill rate 33.60 27.00
Floating-point performance 1,344.0 gflops 1,080.0 gflops
Length 198 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 1050 MHz 800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 134.4 GB/s 25.6 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 11.2 (11_0) 11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model 5.0 5.0
OpenGL 4.4 4.4
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan N/A N/A
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 122 Mh/s
Laptop size large
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