GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 480 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB should be much (more or less 81%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (81%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB 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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video 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 colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.