Radeon RX Vega 3 vs HD 6850M

Place in the ranking	886	779
Place by popularity	not in top-100	84
Power efficiency	2.78	13.62
Architecture	TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)	GCN 5.0 (2017−2020)
GPU code name	Granville	Picasso
Market segment	Laptop	Laptop
Release date	4 January 2011 (13 years ago)	6 January 2019 (5 years ago)

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	800	192
Core clock speed	675 MHz	300 MHz
Boost clock speed	no data	1001 MHz
Number of transistors	1,040 million	4,940 million
Manufacturing process technology	40 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	50 Watt	15 Watt
Texture fill rate	27.00	12.01
Floating-point processing power	1.08 TFLOPS	0.3844 TFLOPS
ROPs	16	4
TMUs	40	12

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	large	no data
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	IGP
Supplementary power connectors	no data	None

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	System Shared
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB	System Shared
Memory bus width	128 Bit	System Shared
Memory clock speed	800 MHz	System Shared
Memory bandwidth	25.6 GB/s	no data
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

No outputs

API compatibility

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

DirectX	11.2 (11_0)	12 (12_1)
Shader Model	5.0	6.4
OpenGL	4.4	4.6
OpenCL	1.2	2.0
Vulkan	N/A	1.2.131

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

HD 6850M 2.03

RX Vega 3 2.98
+46.8%

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

HD 6850M 1470

RX Vega 3 1724
+17.3%

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

HD 6850M 6246
+14.8%

RX Vega 3 5441

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	20 −35%	27−30 +35%
Full HD	25 +108%	12 −108%

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

4−5

−50%

6−7
+50%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 +0%	7 +0%
Battlefield 5	1−2 −400%	5−6 +400%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 −20%	6 +20%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 −50%	6−7 +50%
Far Cry 5	3−4 −100%	6−7 +100%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 −60%	8−9 +60%
Forza Horizon 4	8−9 −100%	16−18 +100%
Hitman 3	7−8 +40%	5 −40%
Horizon Zero Dawn	16−18 −29.4%	21−24 +29.4%
Red Dead Redemption 2	4−5 −50%	6 +50%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 −20%	12−14 +20%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 −11.4%	35−40 +11.4%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 −28.6%	9−10 +28.6%
Battlefield 5	1−2 −400%	5−6 +400%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 −40%	7−8 +40%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 −50%	6−7 +50%
Far Cry 5	3−4 −100%	6−7 +100%
Far Cry New Dawn	5−6 −60%	8−9 +60%
Forza Horizon 4	8−9 −100%	16−18 +100%
Hitman 3	7−8 −14.3%	8−9 +14.3%
Horizon Zero Dawn	16−18 −29.4%	21−24 +29.4%
Red Dead Redemption 2	4−5 −75%	7−8 +75%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 −10%	11 +10%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14 −41.7%	17 +41.7%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 −11.4%	35−40 +11.4%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	7−8 −28.6%	9−10 +28.6%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	5−6 −40%	7−8 +40%
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5 −50%	6−7 +50%
Far Cry 5	3−4 −100%	6−7 +100%
Forza Horizon 4	8−9 −100%	16−18 +100%
Hitman 3	7−8 −14.3%	8−9 +14.3%
Horizon Zero Dawn	16−18 +88.9%	9 −88.9%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	10−11 +11.1%	9 −11.1%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	12−14 +200%	4 −200%
Watch Dogs: Legion	35−40 −11.4%	35−40 +11.4%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

4−5

−75%

7−8
+75%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	3−4 −66.7%	5−6 +66.7%
Far Cry New Dawn	3−4 −33.3%	4−5 +33.3%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	2−3 −50%	3−4 +50%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	1−2 −100%	2−3 +100%
Cyberpunk 2077	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Far Cry 5	2−3 −50%	3−4 +50%
Hitman 3	7−8 −14.3%	8−9 +14.3%
Horizon Zero Dawn	6−7 −33.3%	8−9 +33.3%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	1−2 −100%	2−3 +100%
Watch Dogs: Legion	10−12 −63.6%	18−20 +63.6%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

5−6

−20%

6−7
+20%

4K
High Preset

Far Cry New Dawn

1−2

−100%

2−3
+100%

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	1−2
Far Cry 5	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Watch Dogs: Legion	0−1	1−2

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

3−4

−33.3%

4−5
+33.3%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Valhalla	6 +0%	6 +0%
Metro Exodus	7 +0%	7 +0%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Valhalla	1−2 +0%	1−2 +0%
Metro Exodus	3−4 +0%	3−4 +0%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

1−2

+0%

1−2

+0%

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5

1−2

+0%

1−2

+0%

4K
Ultra Preset

Forza Horizon 4

0−1

This is how HD 6850M and RX Vega 3 compete in popular games:

RX Vega 3 is 35% faster in 900p
HD 6850M is 108% faster in 1080p

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with 1080p resolution and the Ultra Preset, the HD 6850M is 200% faster.
in Battlefield 5, with 1080p resolution and the Medium Preset, the RX Vega 3 is 400% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

HD 6850M is ahead in 4 tests (7%)
RX Vega 3 is ahead in 44 tests (75%)
there's a draw in 11 tests (19%)

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	2.03	2.98
Recency	4 January 2011	6 January 2019
Chip lithography	40 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	50 Watt	15 Watt

RX Vega 3 has a 46.8% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 8 years, a 185.7% more advanced lithography process, and 233.3% lower power consumption.

The Radeon RX Vega 3 is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon HD 6850M in performance tests.

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