GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 5770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5770, which features a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 5770		108 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (130%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5770 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		76800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 54400 (243%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5770 will be quite a bit (about 294%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		34000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25360 (294%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5770 will be a lot (approximately 215%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		13600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9280 (215%)

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 moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.