GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 295X2

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 295X2, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1018 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also features 2816 Stream Processors, 176 TAUs, 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 295X2		500 Watts
	Difference: 453 Watts (964%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 295X2 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		640000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 627200 (4900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 295X2 should be quite a bit (more or less 4047%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		358336 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 349696 (4047%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 295X2 should be much (approximately 2916%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		130304 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 125984 (2916%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.