Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which makes use of a 6 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 2200 MHz. The GDDR6 RAM is set to run at a speed of 2250 MHz on this particular model. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		107 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 68 Watts (64%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870 should theoretically perform a little bit faster than the Radeon RX 6500 XT in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
	Difference: 6144 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT should be much (approximately 76%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 7870. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 60800 (76%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6500 XT is superior to the Radeon HD 7870, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 38400 (120%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.