GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 5570

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5570, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 650 MHz. The DDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 400(80x5) SPUs along with 20 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5570		43 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8600 GTS is 11% quicker than the Radeon HD 5570 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5570		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5570 is just a bit (more or less 20%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Radeon HD 5570		13000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be just a bit (about 4%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 5570, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5570		5200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 200 (4%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.