GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R5 M230, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 780 MHz. The DDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 320 SPUs as well as 20 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R5 M230 should in theory be much better than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 is a lot (approximately 81%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (81%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 is superior to the Radeon R5 M230, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (38%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.