GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M270X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M270X, which comes with GPU clock speed of 725 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1125 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 640 Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M270X should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 49600 (221%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M270X is a lot (about 236%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		29000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20360 (236%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M270X should be quite a bit (approximately 169%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		11600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.