Radeon R9 290X vs Radeon RX 6800 XT

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 6800 XT, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1825 MHz and a GDDR6 memory frequency of 2000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 7 nm design. It features 4608 SPUs, 288 TAUs, and 128 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 6800 XT should be a lot faster than the Radeon R9 290X in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800 XT		524288 MB/sec
Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
	Difference: 204288 (64%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6800 XT is a lot (more or less 273%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 290X. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800 XT		525600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 384800 (273%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6800 XT is a lot (approximately 356%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 290X, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800 XT		233600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 182400 (356%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at 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 the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.