GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB, which has core speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 480 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB will be 29% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (29%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB should be much (more or less 81%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (81%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB is just a bit (approximately 20%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 880 (20%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.