GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R7 370 2G

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 370 2G, which has a core clock frequency of 975 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1400 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 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 DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R7 370 2G		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R7 370 2G should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (1300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 370 2G is a lot (approximately 622%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		62400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53760 (622%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 370 2G will be quite a bit (about 622%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		31200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.