Radeon HD 6850 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which comes with 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 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 6500 XT should be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6850 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19456 (15%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT is a lot (approximately 278%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 103600 (278%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6500 XT is superior to the Radeon HD 6850, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 45600 (184%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed 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. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also 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 bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.