GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6790, which has a clock frequency of 840 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 800 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
	Difference: 103 Watts (219%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6790 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (950%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 will be a lot (more or less 289%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24960 (289%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6790 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.