GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 925 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this specific model. It features 1536 SPUs along with 96 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 138 Watts (294%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 179200 (1400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be a lot (approximately 928%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 80160 (928%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is much (approximately 585%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25280 (585%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.