Radeon HD 6950 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which features GPU core speed of 2200 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR6 RAM set to run at 2250 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is made up of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		107 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 93 Watts (87%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 is 9% faster than the Radeon RX 6500 XT in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
	Difference: 12544 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT will be a lot (approximately 100%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6950. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 70400 (100%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT should be quite a bit (approximately 175%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44800 (175%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's 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 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock 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 a second.

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