GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M280X, which comes with a clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1375 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 896 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M280X will be 293% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 65600 (293%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X should be a lot (approximately 483%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41760 (483%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M280X is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10080 (233%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.