GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which features a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 128 Watts (272%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 is 586% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 131200 (586%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be a lot (about 826%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71360 (826%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27680 (641%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 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 the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.