GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M275X, which has a clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
Radeon R9 M275X		50 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M275X should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8500 GT in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 59200 (463%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X will be quite a bit (about 900%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32400 (900%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X will be quite a bit (more or less 700%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8500 GT, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12600 (700%)

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 transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can 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 ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.