GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R7 370 2G

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R7 370 2G, which features a GPU core clock speed of 975 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1024 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R7 370 2G		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R7 370 2G should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 156800 (700%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 370 2G should be quite a bit (approximately 622%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		62400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53760 (622%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R7 370 2G is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		31200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26880 (622%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one 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 higher the texel rate, 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 the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.