GeForce GTX 850M vs Radeon HD 6950

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 850M and Radeon HD 6950, 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 GeForce GTX 850M stacks up against Radeon HD 6950, check out specs charts below.

GeForce GTX 850M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: GeForce GTX 850M 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 GeForce GTX 850M here:

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 850M Radeon HD 6950
Power consumption (TDP) 45 Watt 500 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin
Memory type DDR3, GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 4 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 6950 has 1011% more power consumption, than GeForce GTX 850M.
  • GeForce GTX 850M is connected by PCIe 3.0 x16, and Radeon HD 6950 uses PCIe 2.0 x16 interface.
  • GeForce GTX 850M has 2 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 6950.
  • GeForce GTX 850M is used in Laptops, and Radeon HD 6950 - in Desktops.
  • GeForce GTX 850M is build with Maxwell architecture, and Radeon HD 6950 - with TeraScale 3.
  • GeForce GTX 850M is manufactured by 28 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 6950 - by 40 nm process technology.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 12−14 14−16
ultra / 1080p 8−9 8−9
QHD / 1440p 2−3 3−4
low / 720p 27−30 27−30
medium / 1080p 16−18 16−18
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 6950 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 7% more, than GeForce GTX 850M.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 850M Radeon HD 6950
Architecture Maxwell TeraScale 3
Code name N15P-GT Cayman
Type Laptop Desktop
Release date 12 March 2014 14 December 2010
Pipelines 640 1408
Boost Clock 800 MHz
Transistor count 1,870 million 2,640 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 40 nm
Texture fill rate 36.08 70.40
Floating-point performance 1,155 gflops 2,252.8 gflops
Length 267 mm
Memory bus width 128 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1250 MHz
Memory bandwidth 80.0 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 12 (11_0)
Shader Model 5.1 5.0
OpenGL 4.5 4.4
OpenCL 1.1 1.2
Vulkan 1.1.126
CUDA +
CUDA cores 640
Bus support PCI Express 2.0, PCI Express 3.0 PCIe 2.0 x16
SLI options +
HDMI + +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 153 Mh/s 244 Mh/s
Laptop size medium sized
Standard memory configuration DDR3 or GDDR5
eDP 1.2 signal support Up to 3840x2160
LVDS signal support Up to 1920x1200
DisplayPort Multimode (DP++) support Up to 3840x2160
HDCP content protection +
7.1 channel HD audio on HDMI +
TrueHD and DTS-HD audio bitstreaming +
H.264, VC1, MPEG2 1080p video decoder +
Optimus +
Eyefinity +
Design reference
CrossFire +
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 1.8 Mh/s
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