Radeon R9 M290X vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which comes with clock speeds of 2200 MHz on the GPU, and 2250 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR6 memory. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
Radeon RX 6500 XT		107 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M290X should be a small bit faster than the Radeon RX 6500 XT overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
	Difference: 6144 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT will be quite a bit (approximately 107%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R9 M290X. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 72800 (107%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6500 XT is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 43200 (159%)

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 transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.