Radeon R9 290X vs Radeon RX 6800

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon RX 6800, which features a core clock speed of 1700 MHz and a GDDR6 memory speed of 2000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 7 nm design. It features 3840 SPUs, 240 TAUs, and 96 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6800		250 Watts
Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 6800, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon R9 290X overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800		524288 MB/sec
Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
	Difference: 204288 (64%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6800 will be much (more or less 190%) better at AF than the Radeon R9 290X. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800		408000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 267200 (190%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6800 should be quite a bit (more or less 219%) more effective at AA than the Radeon R9 290X, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800		163200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 112000 (219%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.