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Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

The Radeon HD 6870 makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1050 MHz on this specific card. It features 1120 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7850, which comes with GPU core speed of 860 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7850 5200 points
Radeon HD 6870 2870 points
Difference: 2330 (81%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850 130 Watts
Radeon HD 6870 151 Watts
Difference: 21 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7850 should theoretically perform a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6870 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850 153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870 134400 MB/sec
Difference: 19200 (14%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 is just a bit (about 9%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850 55040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870 50400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 4640 (9%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is the winner, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870 28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7850 27520 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 1280 (5%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

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Radeon HD 6870

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 7850

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 6870 Radeon HD 7850
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year October 2010 March 2012
Code Name Barts XT Pitcairn Pro
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 900 MHz 860 MHz
Memory Speed 4200 MHz 4800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 151 watts 130 watts
Bandwidth 134400 MB/sec 153600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 50400 Mtexels/sec 55040 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 28800 Mpixels/sec 27520 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1120 1024
Texture Mapping Units 56 64
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 28 nm
Transistors 1700 million 2800 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 4.2

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 6870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7850

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

2 Responses to “Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon HD 7850”
Neuen PC - Seite 52 - Das Diablo-3.net Forum - Das beste deutsche Diablo 3 Forum says:

[...] scheinen sich - zumindest theoretisch - nun auch nicht sooo viel zu geben/nehmen (je nachdem): Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon HD 7850 – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare __________________ "Alle Menschen haben Recht, ZUMINDEST GLAUBEN SIE DAS!" (Albert [...]

Need help for VGA upgrade - www.hardwarezone.com.sg says:

[...] budget is around 400. If not, i don't take the 7000series card and take the 6000series. Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon HD 7850 – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare in that website, the different around less than 15%. but the price is differ 100+ So what do [...]

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