GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 5770

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5770, which has a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 5770		108 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (130%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5770 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		76800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5770 is a lot (about 294%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		34000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25360 (294%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5770 is much (more or less 215%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		13600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.