GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this specific card. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 53 Watts (113%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M290X should be 1100% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 140800 (1100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X will be quite a bit (about 687%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59360 (687%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X should be quite a bit (more or less 530%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22880 (530%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.