GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, which comes with a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of 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) 1GB		63 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (186%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB will be much (approximately 122%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10560 (122%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.