GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 260X, which comes with core clock speeds of 1100 MHz on the GPU, and 1625 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
	Difference: 68 Watts (145%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R7 260X will be 364% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 81600 (364%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X is much (more or less 613%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52960 (613%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R7 260X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13280 (307%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.