Radeon RX 6500 XT vs GeForce GTX 980

Radeon RX 6500 XT
Memory: 4096Mb GDDR6DESKTOP
Release date: 19 Jan 2022
Radeon RX 6500 XT
GeForce GTX 980
Memory: 4096Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 19 Sep 2014
GeForce GTX 980

Summary

Gaming performance index

  • Radeon RX 6500 XT
    111%
  • GeForce GTX 980
    100%

Relative performance

Reasons to consider Radeon RX 6500 XT

11% higher gaming performance.
58 watts lower power draw. This might be a strong point if your current power supply is not enough to handle the GeForce GTX 980 .
This is a much newer product, it might have better long term support.
Supports Direct3D 12 Async Compute
Supports FreeSync
Supports ReLive (allows game streaming/recording with minimum performance penalty)
Infinity Cache allows to deliver up to 3.25x the effective memory bandwidth
Supports DirectX Raytracing (DXR)

Reasons to consider GeForce GTX 980

Supports PhysX
Supports G-Sync
Supports ShadowPlay (allows game streaming/recording with minimum performance penalty)
Based on an outdated architecture (Nvidia Maxwell), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications

Radeon RX 6500 XT

HWBench recommends Radeon RX 6500 XT

The Radeon RX 6500 XT is the better performing card based on the game benchmark suite used (4 combinations of games and resolutions).


Specifications

Core Configuration

Radeon RX 6500 XTGeForce GTX 980
GPU NameNavi 24 (Navi 24 XT)vsGM204 (GM204-400-A1)
Fab Process6 nmvs28 nm
Die Size107 mm²vs398 mm²
Transistors5,400 millionvs5,200 million
Shaders1024vs2048
Compute Units16vs16
Core clock2200 MHzvs1127 MHz
ROPs32vs64
TMUs64vs128

Memory Configuration

Radeon RX 6500 XTGeForce GTX 980
Memory TypeGDDR6vsGDDR5
Bus Width64 bitvs256 bit
Memory Speed2250 MHz
18 Gbps effective
vs1753 MHz
7012 MHz effective
Memory Size4096 Mbvs4096 Mb

Additional details

Radeon RX 6500 XTGeForce GTX 980
TDP107 wattsvs165 watts
Release Date19 Jan 2022vs19 Sep 2014

Raw Performance comparison

Pixel Rate

  • Radeon RX 6500 XT
    90.08 GP/s
  • GeForce GTX 980
    72.10 GP/s

GigaPixels - higher is better

Texel Rate

  • Radeon RX 6500 XT
    180.20 GT/s
  • GeForce GTX 980
    144.30 GT/s

GigaTexels - higher is better

Memory bandwidth

  • Radeon RX 6500 XT
    144.00 GB/s
  • GeForce GTX 980
    224.40 GB/s

GB/s - higher is better

Single precision performance

  • Radeon RX 6500 XT
    5765.00 GFLOPs
  • GeForce GTX 980
    4616.00 GFLOPs

GFLOPs - higher is better

Game benchmarks

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Highest detail, Pure Hair On, HBAO+, DirectX 12, Windows 11 x 64

  • Radeon RX 6500 XT
    64
  • GeForce GTX 980
    52

FPS (higher is better)

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

DX11,Max Details, 16:1 HQ-AF, +AA

  • Radeon RX 6500 XT
    67
  • GeForce GTX 980
    60

FPS (higher is better)

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Highest detail, Pure Hair On, HBAO+, DirectX 12, Windows 11 x 64

  • Radeon RX 6500 XT
    40
  • GeForce GTX 980
    34

FPS (higher is better)

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

DX11,Max Details, 16:1 HQ-AF, +AA

  • Radeon RX 6500 XT
    44
  • GeForce GTX 980
    48

FPS (higher is better)