GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1250 MHz on this model. It features 2816 SPUs as well as 176 Texture Address Units and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
	Difference: 253 Watts (538%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 290X should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 307200 (2400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X will be a lot (about 1530%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 132160 (1530%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290X is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 46880 (1085%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock 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 applied in one 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 calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.