GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5850, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs as well as 72 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 104 Watts (221%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 5850 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 is a lot (more or less 504%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 43560 (504%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5850 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18880 (437%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied 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 better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.