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GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 comes with a core clock speed of 540 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 400 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 80 nm design. It features 32 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6790, which comes with a core clock speed of 840 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 800 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 47 Watts
Radeon HD 6790 150 Watts
Difference: 103 Watts (219%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6790 should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790 134400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 121600 (950%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 should be quite a bit (more or less 289%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790 33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 24960 (289%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6790 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790 13440 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 4320 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 9120 (211%)

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

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GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 6790

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 Radeon HD 6790
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2007 April 2011
Code Name G84 Barts LE
Memory 256 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 840 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 4200 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 150 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 134400 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 33600 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 13440 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 800
Texture Mapping Units 16 40
Render Output Units 8 16
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 40 nm
Transistors 289 million 1700 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.1 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out 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 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 the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6790

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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