GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon R7 370 4G

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 370 4G, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 975 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1400 MHz on this specific model. It features 1024 SPUs along with 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 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R7 370 4G		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R7 370 4G should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 4G		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (1300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 370 4G is quite a bit (more or less 622%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 4G		62400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53760 (622%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R7 370 4G is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, by far. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 4G		31200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.