Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon RX 6800 XT

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 6800 XT, which has a 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 features 4608 SPUs, 288 TAUs, and 128 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
Radeon RX 6800 XT		300 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (71%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon RX 6800 XT should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 7870 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800 XT		524288 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 370688 (241%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6800 XT will be quite a bit (more or less 557%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 7870. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800 XT		525600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 445600 (557%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6800 XT is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon RX 6800 XT		233600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 201600 (630%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.