Radeon R9 290 vs Radeon RX 5600 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 5600 XT, which comes with a core clock speed of 1375 MHz and a GDDR6 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 7 nm design. It features 2304 SPUs, 144 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 5600 XT		160 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 5600 XT should theoretically perform just a bit faster than the Radeon R9 290 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 5600 XT		344064 MB/sec
Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
	Difference: 24064 (8%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 5600 XT is much (approximately 55%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

Radeon RX 5600 XT		198000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 70000 (55%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 5600 XT should be much (about 72%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 290, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon RX 5600 XT		88000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 36800 (72%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.