Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire vs HD 7850
Aggregate performance score
HD 7970M Crossfire outperforms HD 7850 by an impressive 61% based on our aggregated benchmark results.
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in performance ranking | 416 | 313 |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | 1.43 | 31.95 |
| Architecture | GCN 1.0 (2012−2020) | GCN (2011−2017) |
| GPU code name | Pitcairn | Wimbledon XT |
| Market segment | Desktop | Laptop |
| Design | reference | no data |
| Release date | 5 March 2012 (12 years ago) | 1 May 2012 (12 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $249 | no data |
| Current price | $267 (1.1x MSRP) | $126 |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.
HD 7970M Crossfire has 2134% better value for money than HD 7850.
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 | 1024 | 2560 |
| Core clock speed | no data | 850 MHz |
| Boost clock speed | 1000 MHz | no data |
| Number of transistors | 2,800 million | no data |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 130 Watt | 200 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 55.04 | no data |
| Floating-point performance | 1,761 gflops | no data |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on Radeon HD 7850 and Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility). For notebook video cards it's notebook size, connection slot and bus, if the video card is inserted into a slot instead of being soldered to the notebook motherboard.
| Laptop size | no data | large |
| Bus support | PCIe 2.1 x16 | no data |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | no data |
| Length | 210 mm | no data |
| Width | 2-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 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 2 GB | no data |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 2x 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 1200 MHz | 4800 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 153.6 GB/s | no data |
| Shared memory | no data | - |
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 | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort | no data |
| Eyefinity | 1 | no data |
| 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 | 1 | no data |
| Enduro | - | no data |
| FreeSync | 1 | 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 |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | no data |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | no data |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | no data |
| Vulkan | + | 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.
Average FPS across all PC games
Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:
| 900p | 80−85
−65%
| 132
+65%
|
| Full HD | 65−70
−64.6%
| 107
+64.6%
|
Pros & cons summary
| Performance score | 9.98 | 16.02 |
| Recency | 5 March 2012 | 1 May 2012 |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 130 Watt | 200 Watt |
The Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon HD 7850 in performance tests.
Be aware that Radeon HD 7850 is a desktop card while Radeon HD 7970M Crossfire is a notebook 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.
