GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6790, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 840 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1050 MHz on this specific card. It features 800 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
	Difference: 103 Watts (219%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6790 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 should be much (approximately 289%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24960 (289%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 should be a lot (about 211%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.