GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R7 M260X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R7 M260X, which comes with GPU core speed of 825 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R7 M260X should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (186%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260X is quite a bit (more or less 129%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		19800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11160 (129%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260X will be much (approximately 53%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2280 (53%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.