Radeon HD 7850 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which uses a 6 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 2200 MHz. The GDDR6 RAM is set to run at a speed of 2250 MHz on this specific card. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units 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 HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 23 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7850, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon RX 6500 XT in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
	Difference: 6144 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT should be much (about 156%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7850. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 85760 (156%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6500 XT is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 42880 (156%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.