Radeon R9 290 vs Radeon RX 5500 XT

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 5500 XT, which uses a 7 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1717 MHz. The GDDR6 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this specific model. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 5500 XT		130 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 170 Watts (131%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 290 should in theory perform much faster than the Radeon RX 5500 XT overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 5500 XT		229376 MB/sec
	Difference: 90624 (40%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 5500 XT is just a bit (approximately 18%) more effective at AF than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

Radeon RX 5500 XT		151096 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23096 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 5500 XT is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon RX 5500 XT		54944 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3744 (7%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.