GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M295X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1375 MHz on this particular card. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
	Difference: 78 Watts (166%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M295X should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153600 (686%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X should be much (approximately 1011%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 87360 (1011%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X should be much (about 456%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19680 (456%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.