GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4670 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4670 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR4/GDDR3/DDR3/DDR2 RAM works at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 4670 1GB		70 Watts
	Difference: 23 Watts (49%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4670 1GB should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		35200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (175%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 1GB should be much (approximately 178%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		24000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15360 (178%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 1GB should be much (about 39%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		6000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1680 (39%)

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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.