GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R5 M255

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R5 M255, which comes with a core clock speed of 940 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 320 SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 should perform much faster than the Radeon R5 M255 in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M255		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (40%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M255 will be quite a bit (more or less 118%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		18800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10160 (118%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R5 M255 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, by far. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		7520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (74%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.