Radeon R9 290 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which features a core clock frequency of 2200 MHz and a GDDR6 memory speed of 2250 MHz. It also uses a 64-bit bus, and uses a 6 nm design. It features 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		107 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 193 Watts (180%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 290 should theoretically perform much faster than the Radeon RX 6500 XT overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
	Difference: 172544 (117%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT will be a little bit (approximately 10%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (10%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT will be much (more or less 38%) better at FSAA than the Radeon R9 290, and able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19200 (38%)

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 transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.