Maxwell GPU Surface Book vs Radeon HD 7850M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Maxwell GPU Surface Book and Radeon HD 7850M, 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 Maxwell GPU Surface Book stacks up against Radeon HD 7850M, check out specs charts below.

Maxwell GPU Surface Book and Radeon HD 7850M are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: Maxwell GPU Surface Book and Radeon HD 7850M 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 Maxwell GPU Surface Book or Radeon HD 7850M here:

Main Specs

  Maxwell GPU Surface Book Radeon HD 7850M
Power consumption (TDP) 40 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 7850M has 1 GB more memory, than Maxwell GPU Surface Book.
  • Both cards are used in Laptops.
  • Maxwell GPU Surface Book is build with Maxwell architecture, and Radeon HD 7850M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Maxwell GPU Surface Book is 279 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7850M.
  • Maxwell GPU Surface Book and Radeon HD 7850M are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Maxwell GPU Surface Book is 1012 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 7850M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 8−9 6−7
ultra / 1080p 5−6 3−4
QHD / 1440p 0−1 0−1
low / 720p 20−22 14−16
medium / 1080p 10−12 7−8
The average gaming FPS of Maxwell GPU Surface Book in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 37% more, than Radeon HD 7850M.

Full Specs

  Maxwell GPU Surface Book Radeon HD 7850M
Architecture Maxwell GCN
Code name Surface Book Heathrow Pro
Type Laptop Laptop
Release date 1 October 2015 24 April 2012
Pipelines 384 640
Core clock speed 954 MHz 675 MHz
Boost Clock 993 MHz
Transistor count 1,500 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 27.00
Floating-point performance 864.0 gflops
Memory bus width 64 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 5012 MHz 4000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 64 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX DirectX 12 (FL 11_0), Shader 5.0 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.1
OpenGL 4.6
OpenCL 1.2
Vulkan 1.2.131
CUDA +
Laptop size large
Optimus +
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