Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which comes with a core clock frequency of 2200 MHz and a GDDR6 memory speed of 2250 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 6 nm design. It is made up of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		107 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon RX 6500 XT should be 10% quicker than the Radeon HD 6870 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 13056 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT will be a lot (more or less 179%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 90400 (179%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT is a lot (about 144%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6870, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (144%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.