Radeon R9 290X vs Radeon RX 6600 XT

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 6600 XT, which has clock speeds of 1968 MHz on the GPU, and 2000 MHz on the 8192 MB of GDDR6 memory. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 290X will be 22% faster than the Radeon RX 6600 XT overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6600 XT will be much (approximately 79%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 290X. (explain)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		251904 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 111104 (79%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6600 XT is much (about 146%) better at FSAA than the Radeon R9 290X, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		125952 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.