GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M385X, which has GPU core speed of 1100 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M385X will be 329% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (329%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X should be a lot (approximately 613%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52960 (613%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X is a lot (approximately 307%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.