GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon RX 6700 XT

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 6700 XT, which makes use of a 7 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 2321 MHz. The GDDR6 memory is set to run at a speed of 2000 MHz on this particular card. It features 2560 SPUs along with 160 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Radeon RX 6700 XT		230 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (39%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon RX 6700 XT should be 76% faster than the GeForce GTX 980 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon RX 6700 XT		393216 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 169216 (76%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6700 XT is much (about 158%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 980. (explain)

Radeon RX 6700 XT		371360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 227232 (158%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6700 XT is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon RX 6700 XT		148544 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 76480 (106%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.