GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM), which comes with a core clock speed of 800 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 made up 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 6670 (OEM)		63 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (186%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) should be a lot (more or less 122%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10560 (122%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) is quite a bit (more or less 48%) better at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		6400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2080 (48%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.