GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which features GPU clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 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 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB is quite a bit (more or less 81%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		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 a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.