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GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 features a clock frequency of 540 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 700 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 80 nm design. It is comprised of 32 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290, which features clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2560 SPUs as well as 160 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 47 Watts
Radeon R9 290 300 Watts
Difference: 253 Watts (538%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 290 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290 320000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 22400 MB/sec
Difference: 297600 (1329%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 should be much (approximately 1381%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 290 128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 119360 (1381%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 should be much (about 1085%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 290 51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 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

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GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon R9 290

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 Radeon R9 290
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2007 November 2013
Code Name G84 Hawaii PRO
Memory 1024 MB 4096 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 800 MHz
Memory Speed 1400 MHz 5000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 300 watts
Bandwidth 22400 MB/sec 320000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 128000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 51200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 2560
Texture Mapping Units 16 160
Render Output Units 8 64
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 512-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 28 nm
Transistors 289 million 6200 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11.2
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels 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 number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon R9 290

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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