GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 828 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 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 3850 1GB		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 40192 (314%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 24%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2048 (24%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB will be a lot (approximately 147%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6368 (147%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR 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 amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.