Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon RX 6600 XT

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 6600 XT, which features a clock frequency of 1968 MHz and a GDDR6 memory speed of 2000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 7 nm design. It is made up of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		160 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 6600 XT should theoretically be just a bit faster than the Radeon R9 280 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		262144 MB/sec
Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
	Difference: 22144 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6600 XT is much (more or less 141%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 280. (explain)

Radeon RX 6600 XT		251904 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 147408 (141%)

Pixel Rate

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

Radeon RX 6600 XT		125952 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 96096 (322%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.