Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon HD 7850

In this comparison between Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 7850 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 6970 will be the best choice, for others Radeon HD 7850 will be their preference. Study the comparison tables below and make your choice.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6970 Radeon HD 7850
Power consumption (TDP) 550 Watt 225 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin 1x 6-pin
Memory type DDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 6970 has 144% more power consumption, than Radeon HD 7850.
  • Radeon HD 6970 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 7850 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 7850 have maximum RAM of 2 GB.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 6970 is build with Terascale 2 architecture, and Radeon HD 7850 - with GCN 1.0.
  • Radeon HD 6970 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 7850 - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Radeon HD 6970 is 57 mm longer, than Radeon HD 7850.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 6970 is 175 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7850.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 14−16 18−20
ultra / 1080p 9−10 10−12
QHD / 1440p 3−4 5−6
4K / 2160p 4−5
low / 720p 30−35 35−40
medium / 1080p 18−20 24−27
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 7850 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 26% more, than Radeon HD 6970.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6970 Radeon HD 7850
Architecture Terascale 2 GCN 1.0
Code name Cayman Pitcairn
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 14 December 2010 5 March 2012
Pipelines 1536 1024
Boost Clock 880 MHz 1000 MHz
Transistor count 2,640 million 2,800 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 84.48 55.04
Floating-point performance 2,703.4 gflops 1,761 gflops
Length 267 mm 210 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1375 MHz 1200 MHz
Memory bandwidth 153.6 GB/s
Shader Model 5.0 5.1
OpenGL 4.4 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 2.1 x16
HDMI + +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 273 Mh/s 249 Mh/s
Eyefinity + +
Design reference reference
CrossFire + +
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 12.5 Mh/s
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