In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the AMD Radeon HD 6850 XFX Black Edition are marginally better than the AMD Radeon HD 6850 Sapphire 1GB Edition.

The HD 6850 has a 25 MHz higher core clock speed and the same number of Texture Mapping Units as the HD 6850. This results in the HD 6850 providing 1.2 GTexel/s better texturing performance. This still holds weight but shader performance is generally more relevant, particularly since both of these GPUs support at least DirectX 10.

The HD 6850 has a 25 MHz higher core clock speed than the HD 6850 and the same number of Render Output Units. This results in the HD 6850 providing 0.8 GPixel/s better pixeling performance. However, both GPUs support DirectX 9 or above, and pixeling performance is only really relevant when comparing older cards.

Both the Radeon HD 6850 Sapphire 1GB Edition and the Radeon HD 6850 XFX Black Edition were released at the same time, so are likely to be quite similar.

The Radeon HD 6850 Sapphire 1GB Edition and the Radeon HD 6850 XFX Black Edition have the same amount of video memory, but are likely to provide slightly different experiences when displaying game textures at high resolutions.

The HD 6850 has 6.4 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth than the HD 6850, which means that the memory performance of the HD 6850 is marginally better than the HD 6850.

Both the Radeon HD 6850 Sapphire 1GB Edition and the Radeon HD 6850 XFX Black Edition have 960 Shader Processing Units. Having the same number of SPUs and using the same architecture means that the performance they offer can be compared by looking at the memory bandwidth, Texture and Pixel Rates. In this case, the HD 6850 has 1.2 GTexel/s better Texture Fill Rate, 0.8 GPixel/s better Pixel Fill Rate, and 6.4 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth, so should have a marginally faster performance than the HD 6850.

We would recommend a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the HD 6850 and a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the HD 6850. The two GPUs have been recommended a PSU with the same amount of wattage. As such, there is no need to worry about which will more significantly affect your yearly electricity bills.