Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon RX 6650 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 6650 XT, which features GPU core speed of 2055 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR6 memory set to run at 2190 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 6650 XT		176 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon RX 6650 XT is 20% quicker than the Radeon R9 280 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon RX 6650 XT		287072 MB/sec
Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
	Difference: 47072 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6650 XT should be a lot (more or less 152%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 280. (explain)

Radeon RX 6650 XT		263040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 158544 (152%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 6650 XT is a lot (about 341%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon R9 280, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon RX 6650 XT		131520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 101664 (341%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.