GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5870, which has a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 141 Watts (300%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5870 is 1100% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 140800 (1100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be much (more or less 687%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59360 (687%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be a lot (approximately 530%) better at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22880 (530%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.