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

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4650 512MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR2 RAM running at 500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4650 512MB should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB will be much (more or less 122%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4650 512MB is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.