GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7790, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1500 MHz on this particular model. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs 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 7790		85 Watts
	Difference: 38 Watts (81%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7790, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (329%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 is much (more or less 548%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47360 (548%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 will be a lot (about 270%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11680 (270%)

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 across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.