Radeon HD 6950 2GB vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which features GPU core speed of 2200 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR6 RAM running at 2250 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 1024 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		107 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 93 Watts (87%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB, in theory, should be a little bit faster than the Radeon RX 6500 XT overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
	Difference: 12544 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT is a lot (about 100%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 70400 (100%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT will be quite a bit (approximately 175%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.