GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 993 MHz on this particular card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 50752 (397%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB is a lot (approximately 189%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16360 (189%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 512MB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5680 (131%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 in a second.

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