Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon R9 M385X

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon R9 M385X, 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 5850 stacks up against Radeon R9 M385X, check out specs charts below.

Radeon R9 M385X is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon R9 M385X 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 R9 M385X here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 5850 Radeon R9 M385X
Power consumption (TDP) 151 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 4 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 5850 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon R9 M385X uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon R9 M385X has 3 GB more memory, than Radeon HD 5850.
  • Radeon HD 5850 is used in Desktops, and Radeon R9 M385X - in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 5850 is build with Terascale 2 architecture, and Radeon R9 M385X - with GCN.
  • Core clock speed of Radeon R9 M385X is 375 MHz higher, than Radeon HD 5850.
  • Radeon HD 5850 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon R9 M385X - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Radeon HD 5850 is 500 MHz higher, than Radeon R9 M385X.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 9−10 8−9
ultra / 1080p 5−6 5−6
QHD / 1440p 0−1 0−1
low / 720p 21−24 18−20
medium / 1080p 12−14 10−11
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 5850 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 20% more, than Radeon R9 M385X.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 5850 Radeon R9 M385X
Architecture Terascale 2 GCN
Code name Cypress Strato-XT-M3
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 30 September 2009 16 June 2015
Pipelines 1440 896
Core clock speed 725 MHz 1100 MHz
Boost Clock 1100 MHz
Transistor count 2,154 million 2,080 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 52.20 61.60
Floating-point performance 2,088.0 gflops 1,971 gflops
Length 241 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit 128 Bit
Memory clock speed 2000 MHz 1500 MHz
Memory bandwidth 128.0 GB/s 76.8 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model 5.0 6.3
OpenGL 4.4 4.4
OpenCL 1.2 Not Listed
Vulkan N/A
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 3.0
Laptop size large
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
PowerTune +
DualGraphics +
ZeroCore +
Switchable graphics +
Mantle +
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