GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M395X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M395X, which comes with core speeds of 723 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R9 M395X		125 Watts
	Difference: 78 Watts (166%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M395X should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (1150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X is quite a bit (about 971%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		92544 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 83904 (971%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M395X is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		23136 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18816 (436%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.