Radeon HD 6790 vs Radeon HD 6870

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 6790 and Radeon HD 6870, 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 6870, check out specs charts below.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6790 Radeon HD 6870
Power consumption (TDP) 150 Watt 151 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin 2x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 1 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 6870 has 0% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 6790.
  • Both video cards are using PCIe 2.0 x16 interface connection to a motherboard.
  • Radeon HD 6790 and Radeon HD 6870 have maximum RAM of 1 GB.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 6790 and Radeon HD 6870 are build with Terascale 2 architecture.
  • Radeon HD 6790 and Radeon HD 6870 are manufactured by 40 nm process technology.
  • Radeon HD 6870 is 22 mm longer, than Radeon HD 6790.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 6790 and Radeon HD 6870 is 1050 MHz.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 7−8 10−12
ultra / 1080p 4−5 6−7
QHD / 1440p 0−1 1−2
low / 720p 18−20 24−27
medium / 1080p 9−10 12−14
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 6870 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 40% more, than Radeon HD 6790.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6790 Radeon HD 6870
Architecture Terascale 2 Terascale 2
Code name Barts RV940 Barts
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 4 April 2011 22 October 2010
Pipelines 800 1120
Core clock speed 840 MHz
Boost Clock 900 MHz
Transistor count 1,700 million 1,700 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 40 nm
Texture fill rate 33.60 50.40
Floating-point performance 1,344.0 gflops 2,016.0 gflops
Length 198 mm 220 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1050 MHz 1050 MHz
Memory bandwidth 134.4 GB/s 134.4 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model 5.0 5.0
OpenGL 4.4 4.4
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan N/A
Bus support PCIe 2.0 x16
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 122 Mh/s 213 Mh/s
Eyefinity +
Design reference
CrossFire +
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