Radeon HD 6850M vs Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire

In this comparison between Radeon HD 6850M and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire 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 6850M will be the best choice, for others Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire will be their preference. Study the comparison tables below and make your choice.

Radeon HD 6850M and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: Radeon HD 6850M and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire 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 Radeon HD 6850M or Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6850M Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire
Power consumption (TDP) 50 Watt 200 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16
Memory type DDR3, GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB
Display Connectors No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire has 300% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 6850M.
  • Both cards are used in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 6850M is build with Terascale 2 architecture, and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire is 275 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6850M.
  • Radeon HD 6850M is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire is 4000 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6850M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 2−3 35−40
ultra / 1080p 0−1 21−24
QHD / 1440p 0−1 16−18
4K / 2160p 10−11
low / 720p 12−14 60−65
medium / 1080p 3−4 40−45
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 683% more, than Radeon HD 6850M.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6850M Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire
Architecture Terascale 2 GCN
Code name Granville Pro/LP Wimbledon XT
Type Laptop Laptop
Release date 6 January 2011 1 May 2012
Pipelines 800 2560
Core clock speed 575 / 675 MHz 850 MHz
Transistor count 1,040 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 27.00
Floating-point performance 1,080.0 gflops
Memory bus width 128 Bit 2x 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 800 MHz 4800 MHz
Memory bandwidth 25.6 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX 11.2 (11_0) DirectX 11.1, Shader 5.0
Shader Model 5.0
OpenGL 4.4
OpenCL 1.2
Vulkan N/A
Laptop size large large
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