Radeon HD 6850 vs FirePro D500
Aggregate performance score
FirePro D500 outperforms Radeon HD 6850 by a whopping 110% based on our aggregate benchmark results.
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in performance ranking | 395 | 589 |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | 2.67 | 0.53 |
| Architecture | GCN 1.0 (2012−2020) | TeraScale 2 (2009−2015) |
| GPU code name | Tahiti | Barts |
| Market segment | Workstation | Desktop |
| Design | no data | reference |
| Release date | 18 January 2014 (10 years ago) | 21 October 2010 (13 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | no data | $179 |
| Current price | $475 | $177 (1x MSRP) |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.
FirePro D500 has 404% better value for money than HD 6850.
Detailed specifications
General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 1536 | 960 |
| Core clock speed | 725 MHz | no data |
| Number of transistors | 4,313 million | 1,700 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 274 Watt | 127 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 69.60 | 37.20 |
| Floating-point performance | 2,227 gflops | 1,488.0 gflops |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Bus support | no data | AGP |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 2.0 x16 |
| Length | 279 mm | 198 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | no data | 1x 6-pin |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 1 GB |
| Memory bus width | 384 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 5080 MHz | no data |
| Memory bandwidth | 243.8 GB/s | 128.0 GB/s |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.
| Display Connectors | 6x mini-DisplayPort, 1x SDI | 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort |
| Eyefinity | no data | 1 |
| HDMI | no data | + |
| DisplayPort support | no data | - |
Supported technologies
Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.
| AppAcceleration | no data | - |
| CrossFire | no data | 1 |
| Enduro | no data | - |
| HD3D | no data | - |
| PowerTune | no data | - |
| TrueAudio | no data | - |
| ZeroCore | no data | - |
API compatibility
List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 12 (11_1) | DirectX® 11 |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | 5.0 |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.4 |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| Vulkan | 1.2.131 | no data |
| Mantle | no data | - |
Gaming performance
Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.
Pros & cons summary
| Performance score | 10.72 | 5.10 |
| Recency | 18 January 2014 | 21 October 2010 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 3 GB | 1 GB |
| Chip lithography | 28 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 274 Watt | 127 Watt |
The FirePro D500 is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon HD 6850 in performance tests.
Be aware that FirePro D500 is a workstation graphics card while Radeon HD 6850 is a desktop one.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
