GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon R7 360

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 360, which features a clock frequency of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1625 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 768 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R7 360		100 Watts
	Difference: 53 Watts (113%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R7 360 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 360		104000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 91200 (713%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 360 will be quite a bit (about 483%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R7 360		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41760 (483%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 360 is much (approximately 289%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R7 360		16800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.