NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 vs AMD Radeon HD 8850M

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Combined performance score

HD 8850M
2.51

GeForce RTX 4090 outperforms Radeon HD 8850M by 3884% in our combined benchmark results.

General info

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in performance ranking7901
Place by popularitynot in top-1007
Value for money0.2310.69
ArchitectureGCN (2011−2017)Ada Lovelace
GPU code nameVenusAD102-300-A1
Market segmentLaptopDesktop
Release date18 December 2012 (11 years old)20 September 2022 (1 year old)
Launch price (MSRP)no data$1,599
Current price$338 $1756 (1.1x MSRP)
Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

RTX 4090 has 4548% better value for money than HD 8850M.

Technical specs

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 cores64016384
Core clock speed575 MHz2235 MHz
Boost clock speed725 MHz2520 MHz
Number of transistors1,500 million76,300 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm5 nm
Power consumption (TDP)no data450 Watt
Texture fill rate25.001,290
Floating-point performance800.0 gflopsno data

Size and compatibility

Information on Radeon HD 8850M and GeForce RTX 4090 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 sizelargeno data
InterfacePCIe 3.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16
Lengthno data304 mm
Widthno data3-slot
Supplementary power connectorsno data1x 16-pin

Memory

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 typeGDDR5, DDR3GDDR6X
Maximum RAM amount2 GB24 GB
Memory bus width128 Bit384 Bit
Memory clock speed4500 MHz21000 MHz
Memory bandwidth32 GB/s1,008 GB/s
Shared memory--

Video outputs and ports

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 ConnectorsNo outputs1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
HDMIno data+

API support

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

DirectX12 (11_1)12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model5.16.6
OpenGL4.64.6
OpenCL1.23.0
Vulkan1.2.1311.3
CUDAno data8.9

Synthetic benchmark performance

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


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance 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 8850M 2.51
RTX 4090 100.00
+3884%

GeForce RTX 4090 outperforms Radeon HD 8850M by 3884% in our combined benchmark results.


Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

HD 8850M 973
RTX 4090 38753
+3883%

GeForce RTX 4090 outperforms Radeon HD 8850M by 3883% in Passmark.

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.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

HD 8850M 8223
RTX 4090 137170
+1568%

GeForce RTX 4090 outperforms Radeon HD 8850M by 1568% in 3DMark Vantage Performance.

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.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

HD 8850M 2349
RTX 4090 104937
+4367%

GeForce RTX 4090 outperforms Radeon HD 8850M by 4367% in 3DMark 11 Performance GPU.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

HD 8850M 1845
RTX 4090 73174
+3866%

GeForce RTX 4090 outperforms Radeon HD 8850M by 3866% in 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics.

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

HD 8850M 11387
RTX 4090 250667
+2101%

GeForce RTX 4090 outperforms Radeon HD 8850M by 2101% in 3DMark Cloud Gate GPU.

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:

Full HD25
−960%
265
+960%
1440p5−6
−4140%
212
+4140%
4K3−4
−4900%
150
+4900%

Performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 5−6
−4400%
225
+4400%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 3−4
−7733%
235
+7733%
Battlefield 5 5−6
−3760%
190−200
+3760%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10−12
−1518%
170−180
+1518%
Cyberpunk 2077 5−6
−4340%
222
+4340%
Far Cry 5 3−4
−6867%
209
+6867%
Far Cry New Dawn 3−4
−5833%
178
+5833%
Forza Horizon 4 6−7
−5083%
300−350
+5083%
Hitman 3 4−5
−5375%
210−220
+5375%
Horizon Zero Dawn 4−5
−6775%
275
+6775%
Red Dead Redemption 2 5−6
−3560%
180−190
+3560%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 9−10
−3167%
294
+3167%
Watch Dogs: Legion 1−2
−18700%
188
+18700%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 3−4
−7267%
221
+7267%
Battlefield 5 5−6
−3760%
190−200
+3760%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10−12
−1518%
170−180
+1518%
Cyberpunk 2077 5−6
−4180%
214
+4180%
Far Cry 5 3−4
−6600%
201
+6600%
Far Cry New Dawn 3−4
−5600%
171
+5600%
Forza Horizon 4 6−7
−5083%
300−350
+5083%
Hitman 3 4−5
−5375%
210−220
+5375%
Horizon Zero Dawn 4−5
−6150%
250
+6150%
Metro Exodus 3−4
−7433%
226
+7433%
Red Dead Redemption 2 5−6
−3560%
180−190
+3560%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 9−10
−3100%
288
+3100%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 6−7
−9450%
573
+9450%
Watch Dogs: Legion 1−2
−17200%
173
+17200%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 3−4
−5867%
179
+5867%
Battlefield 5 5−6
−3760%
190−200
+3760%
Cyberpunk 2077 5−6
−4100%
210
+4100%
Far Cry 5 3−4
−6133%
187
+6133%
Far Cry New Dawn 3−4
−5033%
154
+5033%
Forza Horizon 4 6−7
−5083%
300−350
+5083%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 6−7
−4983%
305
+4983%
Watch Dogs: Legion 1−2
−15200%
153
+15200%

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 5−6
−2880%
140−150
+2880%
Hitman 3 5−6
−4160%
210−220
+4160%
Horizon Zero Dawn 10−11
−2270%
237
+2270%
Metro Exodus 1−2
−17600%
177
+17600%
Red Dead Redemption 2 1−2
−9200%
90−95
+9200%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 6−7
−4417%
271
+4417%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 1−2
−15300%
154
+15300%
Far Cry 5 4−5
−4550%
186
+4550%
Forza Horizon 4 1−2
−28200%
280−290
+28200%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 3−4
−8833%
268
+8833%

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2−3
−4700%
95−100
+4700%
Hitman 3 3−4
−4167%
120−130
+4167%
Horizon Zero Dawn 8−9
−2238%
187
+2238%
Red Dead Redemption 2 1−2
−6300%
60−65
+6300%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 1−2
−11900%
120
+11900%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 1−2
−11900%
120
+11900%
Cyberpunk 2077 0−1 80
Far Cry 5 4−5
−4225%
173
+4225%
Far Cry New Dawn 6−7
−2317%
145
+2317%

This is how HD 8850M and RTX 4090 compete in popular games:

1080p resolution:

  • RTX 4090 is 960% faster than HD 8850M

1440p resolution:

  • RTX 4090 is 4140% faster than HD 8850M

4K resolution:

  • RTX 4090 is 4900% faster than HD 8850M

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

  • in Forza Horizon 4, with 1440p resolution and the Ultra Preset, the RTX 4090 is 28200% faster than the HD 8850M.

All in all, in popular games:

  • Without exception, RTX 4090 surpassed HD 8850M in all 53 of our tests.

Advantages and disadvantages


Performance score 2.51 100.00
Recency 18 December 2012 20 September 2022
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 24 GB
Chip lithography 28 nm 5 nm

The GeForce RTX 4090 is our recommended choice as it beats the Radeon HD 8850M in performance tests.

Be aware that Radeon HD 8850M is a notebook card while GeForce RTX 4090 is a desktop one.


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

User ratings

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


AMD Radeon HD 8850M
Radeon HD 8850M
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
GeForce RTX 4090

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Questions and comments

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