Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which uses a 6 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 2200 MHz. The GDDR6 memory is set to run at a speed of 2250 MHz on this card. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		107 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 93 Watts (87%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be 9% quicker than the Radeon RX 6500 XT in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
	Difference: 12544 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT will be a lot (approximately 100%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 70400 (100%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6500 XT is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44800 (175%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out 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 ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.