In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the AMD Radeon R7 265 Sapphire Dual-X 2GB Edition are marginally better than the AMD Radeon HD 7850 XFX Ultra OC Edition.

The HD 7850 has a 75 MHz higher core clock speed and the same number of Texture Mapping Units as the R7 265. This results in the HD 7850 providing 4.8 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 7850 has a 75 MHz higher core clock speed than the R7 265 and the same number of Render Output Units. This results in the HD 7850 providing 2.4 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 R7 265 was released over a year more recently than the HD 7850, and so the R7 265 is likely to have better driver support, meaning it will be more optimized for running the latest games when compared to the HD 7850.

The R7 265 has 1024 MB more video memory than the HD 7850, so is likely to be much better at displaying game textures at higher resolutions. This is supported by the fact that the R7 265 also has superior memory performance overall.

The R7 265 has 25.6 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth than the HD 7850, which means that the memory performance of the R7 265 is slightly better than the HD 7850.

Both the Radeon R7 265 Sapphire Dual-X 2GB Edition and the Radeon HD 7850 XFX Ultra OC Edition have 1024 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 7850 has 4.8 GTexel/s better Texture Fill Rate and 2.4 GPixel/s better Pixel Fill Rate, but the R7 265 has 25.6 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth. Overall, the R7 265 has slightly better performance.

The Radeon R7 265 Sapphire Dual-X 2GB Edition requires 150 Watts to run but there is no entry for the Radeon HD 7850 XFX Ultra OC Edition. We would recommend a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the R7 265 and a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the HD 7850. 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.