GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M265X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M265X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 575 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M265X should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M265X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 59200 (463%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M265X will be quite a bit (approximately 166%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M265X		23000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14360 (166%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M265X is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M265X		9200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4880 (113%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.