GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs Radeon R9 M270X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M270X, which comes with core speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M270X should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 59200 (463%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M270X should be much (more or less 236%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		29000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20360 (236%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M270X should be quite a bit (more or less 169%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		11600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7280 (169%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.