GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4650 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4650 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 600 MHz. The DDR2 RAM runs at a speed of 500 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		55 Watts
	Difference: 8 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4650 512MB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB is much (about 122%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10560 (122%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB should be just a bit (about 11%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 480 (11%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.