Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which features a core clock frequency of 2200 MHz and a GDDR6 memory frequency of 2250 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and makes use of a 6 nm design. It features 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, 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

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6970 is 19% faster than the Radeon RX 6500 XT overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT is much (approximately 67%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT is a lot (approximately 150%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 6970, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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