GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which features a clock speed of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 480 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB will be 186% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (186%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB should be a lot (more or less 81%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (81%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB 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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.