AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB
The HD 7850 2GB finds itself in the ideal
position of basically being unopposed by a comparable Nvidia card. The GTX 660 2GB
costs $64.5 more, while the newly released HD 650 Ti 1GB is $40 cheaper,
leaving this mid-range card offering a great deal of performance for a
sub-$241.5 price tag.
The card’s Pitcairn Pro GPU is a further
reduction from that of the HD 7870 2GB, with 16 CUs, 64 SIMDs and a total of
1,024 stream processors. As there are four texture units per CU, this also
means that the HD 7850 2GB sports 64 texture units.
However, unlike the HD 7700 series of
cards, the HD 7850 retains the dual front-end engines of the higher-end AMD
7-series GPUs, meaning that it offers a pair of tessellation engines and
rasterizer, while also carrying the full 32 ROPs, compared to the 16 ROPs in
the slower HD 7770 1GB. Meanwhile, an 860MHz core frequency is a 14 per cent drop
from that of the HD 7870 2GB, but still sufficiently nippy for a $225 card.
It also has a more sophisticated memory
setup than its cheaper siblings. A quartet of 64-bit memory controllers makes
for a 256-bit memory interface, allowing the HD 7850 2GB to offer plenty of
memory bandwidth. A stock memory frequency of 1.2GHz (4.8GHz effective) results
in 153.6GB/sec of memory bandwidth, the same as the HD 7870 2GB and 40 per cent
more than the GTX 650 Ti 1GB.
The HD 7850 2GB’s Unigine score of 1,081
shows a 15 per cent drop from the HD 7870 2GB; a reduction that’s mirrored in
the card’s real world performance. Meanwhile, a minimum frame rate of 39fps in
Crysis 2 at 1,920 x 1,080 is 11 per cent slower than the 7870 2GB, but still 35
per cent than the 7870 2GB, but still 35 per cent faster than Nvidia’s GTX 650
Ti 1GB in the same test. In Battlefield 3, the GTX 650 Ti 1GB performs much
closer with a minimum of 32fps at 1,920 x 1,080 with 4x AA, but the HD 7850 2GB
is still quicker, with a minimum frame rate of 35fps in the same test. At
higher resolutions such as 2,560 x 1,600, the HD 7850 2GBs performance remains
10 – 15 per cent slower than that of the HD 7870 2GB, but it’s unable to
deliver playable frame rates above 25fps in most titles at this resolution.
Conclusion
The HD 7850 2GB í ideally positioned to
clear up the mid-range and low-end graphics market with its new low price of
$225. It’s up to twice as fast as the sub-$144.5 cards such as the HD 7700
series or the GTX 650 1GB, but costs only $80.5 more, and offers enough extra
performance over the GTX 650 Ti 1GB to make spending that extra cash an easy
decision. If you’re on a tight budget for your GPU, the HD 7850 2GB is by far
the best choice.
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Information
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Outstanding value and solid performance for just $225
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Deal: Superb frame rates at 1,920 x 1,080 with
ultra-settings; twice as fast as sub-$160.9 cards for $80.5 more
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No deal: Limited performance at higher resolutions
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Typical street price: $225
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Manufacturer: www.amd.com
Scores
1920 speed: 11/20
2560 speed: 10/20
5760 speed: 2/5
Value: 51/55
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