In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the AMD Radeon HD 7750 Crossfire are noticeably better than the AMD Radeon HD 6850 Sapphire 1GB Edition.

The HD 7750 has a 25 MHz higher core clock speed and 16 more Texture Mapping Units than the HD 6850. This results in the HD 7750 providing 14 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 7750 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 7750 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.

The HD 7750 was released over a year more recently than the HD 6850, and so the HD 7750 is likely to have better driver support, meaning it will be more optimized for running the latest games when compared to the HD 6850.

The HD 7750 has 1024 MB more video memory than the HD 6850, so is likely to be much better at displaying game textures at higher resolutions. This is supported by the fact that the HD 7750 also has superior memory performance overall.

The HD 7750 has 16 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth than the HD 6850, which means that the memory performance of the HD 7750 is slightly better than the HD 6850.

The Radeon HD 6850 Sapphire 1GB Edition has 960 Shader Processing Units and the Radeon HD 7750 Crossfire has 1024. However, the actual shader performance of the HD 6850 is 372 and the actual shader performance of the HD 7750 is 696. The HD 7750 having 324 better shader performance and an altogether better performance when taking into account other relevant data means that the HD 7750 delivers a noticeably smoother and more efficient experience when processing graphical data than the HD 6850.

The HD 7750 transistor size technology is 12 nm (nanometers) smaller than the HD 6850. This means that the HD 7750 is expected to run slightly cooler and achieve higher clock frequencies than the HD 6850.

The Radeon HD 7750 Crossfire requires 110 Watts to run but there is no entry for 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 7750. 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.