GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M280X, which features GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1375 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 896 Stream Processors, 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 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M280X should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 65600 (293%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X should be a lot (more or less 483%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41760 (483%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X should be quite a bit (about 233%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.