GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon RX 6600 XT

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 6600 XT, which makes use of a 7 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1968 MHz. The GDDR6 RAM runs at a speed of 2000 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
Radeon RX 6600 XT		160 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon RX 6600 XT should theoretically be a bit better than the GeForce GTX 970 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		262144 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38144 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6600 XT should be quite a bit (more or less 131%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 970. (explain)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		251904 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 142704 (131%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6600 XT is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		125952 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 58752 (87%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to 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 get to the max fill rate.