GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon R7 250X 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 250X 2GB, which has a clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
Radeon R7 250X 2GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R7 250X 2GB should in theory be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 40000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X 2GB is a lot (about 270%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29200 (270%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X 2GB is much (approximately 196%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10600 (196%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.