GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R5 M330

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R5 M330, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1030 MHz. The DDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 320 SPUs as well as 20 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 is 56% quicker than the Radeon R5 M330 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M330		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (56%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M330 will be much (approximately 138%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R5 M330		20600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11960 (138%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R5 M330 will be much (approximately 91%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R5 M330		8240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3920 (91%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one 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 speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.