In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the GTX 650 Ti and the HD 6850 are equal.

The GTX 650 Ti has a 153 MHz higher core clock speed and 16 more Texture Mapping Units than the HD 6850. This results in the GTX 650 Ti providing 22.2 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 GTX 650 Ti has a 153 MHz higher core clock speed than the HD 6850, but the HD 6850 has 16 more Render Output Units than the GTX 650 Ti. As a result, the HD 6850 exhibits a 10 GPixel/s better Pixel Fill Rate than the GTX 650 Ti. However, both GPUs support DirectX 9 or above, and pixeling performance is only really relevant when comparing older cards.

The GTX 650 Ti was released over a year more recently than the HD 6850, and so the GTX 650 Ti 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 GTX 650 Ti has 1024 MB more video memory than the HD 6850, so is likely to be much better at displaying game textures at higher resolutions. However, the overall memory performance is about the same.

The HD 6850 has 41.6 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth than the GTX 650 Ti, which means that the memory performance of the HD 6850 is noticeably better than the GTX 650 Ti.

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti Gainward 2GB Edition has 768 Shader Processing Units and the Radeon HD 6850 Sapphire 1GB Edition has 960. However, the actual shader performance of the GTX 650 Ti is 713 and the actual shader performance of the HD 6850 is 372. The GTX 650 Ti having 341 better shader performance is not particularly notable, as altogether the HD 6850 performs better when taking into account other relevant data.

The GTX 650 Ti transistor size technology is 12 nm (nanometers) smaller than the HD 6850. This means that the GTX 650 Ti is expected to run slightly cooler and achieve higher clock frequencies than the HD 6850. While they exhibit similar graphical performance, the GTX 650 Ti should consume less power than the HD 6850.

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti Gainward 2GB Edition requires 110 Watts to run but there is no entry for the Radeon HD 6850 Sapphire 1GB Edition. We would recommend a PSU with at least 400 Watts for the GTX 650 Ti and a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the HD 6850. The HD 6850 has been recommended a PSU with 100 Watts more than the GTX 650 Ti. The difference is significant enough that the HD 6850 may have an adverse affect on your yearly electricity bills in comparison to the GTX 650 Ti.