Radeon RX 590 vs Radeon RX 6800 XT

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 6800 XT, which features a core clock frequency of 1825 MHz and a GDDR6 memory frequency of 2000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 7 nm design. It is made up of 4608 SPUs, 288 Texture Address Units, and 128 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 590		175 Watts
Radeon RX 6800 XT		300 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (71%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 6800 XT should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon RX 590 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800 XT		524288 MB/sec
Radeon RX 590		262144 MB/sec
	Difference: 262144 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6800 XT is a lot (approximately 148%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon RX 590. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800 XT		525600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon RX 590		211536 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 314064 (148%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6800 XT is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800 XT		233600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 590		47008 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 186592 (397%)

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 across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.