GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 7750

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7750, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this model. It features 512 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 7750		55 Watts
	Difference: 8 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7750 should be 463% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7750		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 59200 (463%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7750 is a lot (about 196%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 7750		25600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16960 (196%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7750 will be a lot (approximately 196%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7750		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8480 (196%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per 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. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.