GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M295X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1375 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (178%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M295X should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 163200 (1275%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X should be quite a bit (more or less 2567%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 92400 (2567%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X is much (approximately 1233%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22200 (1233%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant 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.