Introduction
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The new Radeon HD 6790 comes with a USD 150 suggested price, positioning it between the Radeon HD 5770 and the Radeon HD 6850, and competing directly with the GeForce GTX 550 Ti from NVIDIA. Let’s see if this video card is a good buy.
We are reviewing the reference model of the Radeon HD 6790 provided by AMD. While the performance of Radeon HD 6790 provided by other companies may be the same, the design of the video card may be different, depending upon whether the manufacturer decided to create its own design or follow AMD’s ready-made design. Also, it is very important to understand that manufacturers will probably offer Radeon HD 6790 video cards running at higher clock rates than the reference model.
In the table below we compare the main specs of the video cards included in our review. They are all DirectX 11 parts. The prices listed below do not include rebates. Prices were researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this review, except for the Radeon HD 6790, that we are publishing at the suggested price according to AMD.
| Video Card | Core Clock | Shader Clock | Memory Clock (Real) | Memory Clock (Effective) | Memory Interface | Memory Transfer Rate | Memory | Shaders | Price |
| GeForce GTX 550 Ti | 900 MHz | 1,800 MHz | 1,025 MHz | 4.1 GHz | 192-bit | 98.4 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR5 | 192 | USD 125 – USD 152 |
| Radeon HD 5770 | 850 MHz | 850 MHz | 1.2 GHz | 4.8 GHz | 128-bit | 76.8 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR5 | 800 | USD 120 – 140 |
| Radeon HD 6790 | 840 MHz | 840 MHz | 1 GHz | 4 GHz | 256-bit | 128 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR5 | 800 | USD 150 |
| Radeon HD 6850 | 775 MHz | 775 MHz | 1 GHz | 4 GHz | 256-bit | 128 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR5 | 960 | USD 165 – 185 |
You can compare the specs of these video cards with other video cards by taking a look at our AMD ATI Chips Comparison Table and NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table tutorials.
Now let’s take an in-depth look at the reference model of the Radeon HD 6790.
