GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 390 8G

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 390 8G, which comes with core speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 8192 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2560 SPUs along with 160 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R9 390 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 228 Watts (485%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 390 8G will be 1614% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		384000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 361600 (1614%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G is quite a bit (approximately 1752%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		160000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 151360 (1752%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G is a lot (more or less 1381%) better at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		64000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 59680 (1381%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.