GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features a clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 59 Watts (126%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB will be 350% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (350%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB is quite a bit (more or less 44%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3760 (44%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be a lot (about 187%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8080 (187%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.