Radeon HD 6850M vs Radeon HD 8870M

In this comparison between Radeon HD 6850M and Radeon HD 8870M 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 6850M will be the best choice, for others Radeon HD 8870M will be their preference. Study the comparison tables below and make your choice.

Radeon HD 6850M and Radeon HD 8870M are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: Radeon HD 6850M and Radeon HD 8870M 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 Radeon HD 6850M or Radeon HD 8870M here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6850M Radeon HD 8870M
Power consumption (TDP) 50 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Memory type DDR3, GDDR5 GDDR5, DDR3
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 2 GB
Display Connectors No outputs No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 6850M is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon HD 8870M uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 8870M has 1 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 6850M.
  • Both cards are used in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 6850M is build with Terascale 2 architecture, and Radeon HD 8870M - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon HD 8870M is 150 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6850M.
  • Radeon HD 6850M is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon HD 8870M - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 8870M is 3700 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 6850M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 2−3 7−8
ultra / 1080p 0−1 4−5
QHD / 1440p 0−1 0−1
low / 720p 12−14 18−20
medium / 1080p 3−4 9−10
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 8870M in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 100% more, than Radeon HD 6850M.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6850M Radeon HD 8870M
Architecture Terascale 2 GCN
Code name Granville Pro/LP Venus
Type Laptop Laptop
Release date 6 January 2011 18 December 2012
Pipelines 800 640
Core clock speed 575 / 675 MHz 725 MHz
Boost Clock 775 MHz
Transistor count 1,040 million 1,500 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 27.00 31.00
Floating-point performance 1,080.0 gflops 992.0 gflops
Memory bus width 128 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 800 MHz 4500 MHz
Memory bandwidth 25.6 GB/s 72 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) 107 Mh/s
Laptop size large large
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