GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M370X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M370X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this card. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 M370X should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 59200 (463%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M370X should be much (more or less 270%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		32000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23360 (270%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M370X is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8480 (196%)

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 transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at 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 the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.