Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which has a core clock frequency of 2200 MHz and a GDDR6 memory frequency of 2250 MHz. It also uses a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 6 nm design. It is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		107 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 143 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6970, in theory, should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon RX 6500 XT in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
	Difference: 28544 (19%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT should be a lot (approximately 67%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56320 (67%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6500 XT is superior to the Radeon HD 6970, by far. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 42240 (150%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.