Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		107 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 143 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon RX 6500 XT overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
	Difference: 92544 (63%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT should be a lot (approximately 35%) better at AF than the Radeon R9 280. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36304 (35%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6500 XT is superior to the Radeon R9 280, by far. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 40544 (136%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.