GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this specific model. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (133%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (380%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be much (more or less 641%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69200 (641%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is quite a bit (approximately 493%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26600 (493%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.