Radeon HD 6850 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 memory running at 2250 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also 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 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon RX 6500 XT should in theory be a bit better than the Radeon HD 6850 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT should be a lot (approximately 278%) more effective at AF 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 running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6500 XT is the winner, and very much so. (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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.