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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M270X

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 has a GPU core speed of 540 MHz, and the 512 MB of DDR2 memory is set to run at 400 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 32 Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M270X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this particular model. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X 72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 59200 (463%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M270X should be much (approximately 236%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X 29000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 20360 (236%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M270X will be quite a bit (about 169%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X 11600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 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

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

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Radeon R9 M270X

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 Radeon R9 M270X
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2007 May 1 2014
Code Name G84 Venus XT
Memory 512 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 725 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 4500 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 72000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 29000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 11600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 640
Texture Mapping Units 16 40
Render Output Units 8 16
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 28 nm
Transistors 289 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11.2
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon R9 M270X

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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