Radeon HD 6790 vs Radeon HD 8790M

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 6790 and Radeon HD 8790M, 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 8790M, check out specs charts below.

Radeon HD 8790M is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon HD 8790M 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 Radeon HD 8790M here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6790 Radeon HD 8790M
Power consumption (TDP) 150 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 MXM-A (3.0)
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin None
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 6790 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 8790M uses MXM-A (3.0) interface.
  • Radeon HD 8790M has 1 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 6790.
  • Radeon HD 6790 is used in Desktops, and Radeon HD 8790M - in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 6790 is build with Terascale 2 architecture, and Radeon HD 8790M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon HD 8790M is 10 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6790.
  • Radeon HD 6790 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 8790M - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 8790M is 3450 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6790.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 7−8 3−4
ultra / 1080p 4−5 1−2
QHD / 1440p 0−1 0−1
low / 720p 18−20 14−16
medium / 1080p 9−10 6−7
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 6790 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 66% more, than Radeon HD 8790M.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6790 Radeon HD 8790M
Architecture Terascale 2 GCN
Code name Barts Mars XTX
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 4 April 2011 16 November 2012
Pipelines 800 384
Core clock speed 840 MHz 850 MHz
Boost Clock 900 MHz
Transistor count 1,700 million 950 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 33.60 21.60
Floating-point performance 1,344.0 gflops 691.2 gflops
Length 198 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 1050 MHz 4500 MHz
Memory bandwidth 134.4 GB/s 64 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 11.2 (11_0) 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.0 5.1
OpenGL 4.4 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan N/A 1.2.131
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 122 Mh/s 80 Mh/s
Laptop size medium sized
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