GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which comes with a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 975 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 143 Watts (304%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4890 2GB should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (875%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB should be quite a bit (more or less 363%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31360 (363%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4890 2GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11680 (270%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.