Radeon HD 6850M vs ATI HD 3850

Place in the ranking	1100	884
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	0.02	no data
Power efficiency	0.94	2.78
Architecture	TeraScale (2005−2013)	TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code name	RV670	Granville
Market segment	Desktop	Laptop
Release date	19 November 2007 (16 years ago)	4 January 2011 (13 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$179	no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	320	800
Core clock speed	668 MHz	675 MHz
Number of transistors	666 million	1,040 million
Manufacturing process technology	55 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	75 Watt	50 Watt
Texture fill rate	10.69	27.00
Floating-point processing power	0.4275 TFLOPS	1.08 TFLOPS
ROPs	16	16
TMUs	16	40

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).

Laptop size	no data	large
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16
Length	208 mm	no data
Width	1-slot	no data
Supplementary power connectors	1x 6-pin	no data

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	GDDR3	GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB	1 GB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	128 Bit
Memory clock speed	830 MHz	800 MHz
Memory bandwidth	53.12 GB/s	25.6 GB/s
Shared memory	-	-

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

2x DVI, 1x S-Video

No outputs

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	10.1 (10_1)	11.2 (11_0)
Shader Model	4.1	5.0
OpenGL	3.3	4.4
OpenCL	N/A	1.2
Vulkan	N/A	N/A

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

900p	10−12 −100%	20 +100%
Full HD	12−14 −117%	26 +117%

Cost per frame, $

1080p

14.92

no data

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

4−5

+0%

4−5

+0%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Battlefield 5	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 +0%	5−6 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Far Cry 5	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 +0%	5−6 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	8−9 +0%	8−9 +0%
Hitman 3	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	16−18 +0%	16−18 +0%
Red Dead Redemption 2	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 +0%	10−11 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 +0%	35−40 +0%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Battlefield 5	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 +0%	5−6 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Far Cry 5	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 +0%	5−6 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	8−9 +0%	8−9 +0%
Hitman 3	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	16−18 +0%	16−18 +0%
Red Dead Redemption 2	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 +0%	10−11 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14 +0%	12−14 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 +0%	35−40 +0%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 +0%	5−6 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 +0%	4−5 +0%
Far Cry 5	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%
Forza Horizon 4	8−9 +0%	8−9 +0%
Hitman 3	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	16−18 +0%	16−18 +0%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 +0%	10−11 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14 +0%	12−14 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 +0%	35−40 +0%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

4−5

+0%

4−5

+0%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%
Far Cry New Dawn	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 +0%	2−3 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Cyberpunk 2077	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Far Cry 5	2−3 +0%	2−3 +0%
Hitman 3	7−8 +0%	7−8 +0%
Horizon Zero Dawn	6−7 +0%	6−7 +0%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	10−12 +0%	10−12 +0%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

5−6

+0%

5−6

+0%

4K
High Preset

Far Cry New Dawn

1−2

+0%

1−2

+0%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 +0%	2−3 +0%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	0−1	0−1
Far Cry 5	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	0−1	0−1

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

3−4

+0%

3−4

+0%

This is how ATI HD 3850 and HD 6850M compete in popular games:

HD 6850M is 100% faster in 900p
HD 6850M is 117% faster in 1080p

All in all, in popular games:

there's a draw in 53 tests (100%)

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	1.02	2.01
Recency	19 November 2007	4 January 2011
Chip lithography	55 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	75 Watt	50 Watt

HD 6850M has a 97.1% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 3 years, a 37.5% more advanced lithography process, and 50% lower power consumption.

The Radeon HD 6850M is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon HD 3850 in performance tests.

Be aware that Radeon HD 3850 is a desktop card while Radeon HD 6850M is a notebook one.

Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.