GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M295X, which has clock speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 1375 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
	Difference: 78 Watts (166%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M295X will be 686% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153600 (686%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X will be much (about 1011%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 87360 (1011%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M295X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.