GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R7 360

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 360, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1050 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1625 MHz on this particular card. It features 768 SPUs as well as 48 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R7 360		100 Watts
	Difference: 53 Watts (113%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R7 360 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon R7 360		104000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 81600 (364%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 360 will be much (more or less 483%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R7 360		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41760 (483%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R7 360 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R7 360		16800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12480 (289%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR 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 texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling 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 the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.