GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 2200 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR6 memory running at 2250 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		107 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 58 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 980 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon RX 6500 XT overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
	Difference: 76544 (52%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be just a bit (more or less 2%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon RX 6500 XT. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3328 (2%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is the winner, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1664 (2%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.