GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 480 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB is 125% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB should be quite a bit (approximately 81%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (81%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB is a little bit (about 20%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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