Radeon HD 5850 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which has GPU core speed of 2200 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR6 memory set to run at 2250 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised 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 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon RX 6500 XT should be 15% faster than the Radeon HD 5850 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19456 (15%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT should be quite a bit (more or less 170%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 5850. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 88600 (170%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT should be much (about 203%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5850, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 47200 (203%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant 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.