GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7850, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 860 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this model. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 83 Watts (177%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7850 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 131200 (586%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be much (more or less 537%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46400 (537%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be quite a bit (more or less 537%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23200 (537%)

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 transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.