GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon R7 370 2G

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 370 2G, which has clock speeds of 975 MHz on the GPU, and 1400 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
Radeon R7 370 2G		110 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 370 2G will be 460% faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (460%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 370 2G should be quite a bit (about 478%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		62400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51600 (478%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 370 2G will be a lot (about 478%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		31200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25800 (478%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.