GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M385X, which features a clock frequency of 1100 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M385X should in theory be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X is much (about 613%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52960 (613%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X should be a lot (more or less 307%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13280 (307%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics 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 colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. 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 reach the maximum fill rate.