GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R7 370 4G

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 370 4G, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 975 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1400 MHz on this specific card. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R7 370 4G		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R7 370 4G should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 4G		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (1300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 370 4G will be much (more or less 622%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 4G		62400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53760 (622%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 370 4G should be a lot (about 622%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 4G		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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.