GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M380

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M380, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M380 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 is a lot (about 363%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31360 (363%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 should be quite a bit (about 270%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11680 (270%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 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 worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.