GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon R7 M260

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 M260, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 715 MHz. The DDR3 RAM works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 384 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 should theoretically be much better than the Radeon R7 M260 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (40%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260 will be a lot (more or less 99%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260		17160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8520 (99%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260 is much (more or less 32%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260		5720 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1400 (32%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a 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. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.