GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R5 M255

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R5 M255, which features a clock frequency of 940 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon R5 M255 in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M255		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (40%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M255 should be a lot (more or less 118%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		18800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10160 (118%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R5 M255 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		7520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.