Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 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 RAM set to run at 2250 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 6500 XT, in theory, should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
	Difference: 3328 (2%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT should be much (approximately 433%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 114400 (433%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT will be a lot (about 167%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44000 (167%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.