Radeon R9 290 vs Radeon RX 6600 XT

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon RX 6600 XT, which has a core clock frequency of 1968 MHz and a GDDR6 memory frequency of 2000 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 7 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		160 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 290 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon RX 6600 XT in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6600 XT		262144 MB/sec
	Difference: 57856 (22%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6600 XT is a lot (more or less 97%) better at AF than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		251904 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 123904 (97%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6600 XT should be much (about 146%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 290, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		125952 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 74752 (146%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.