GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The DDR2 RAM runs at a speed of 950 MHz on this specific card. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3470 256MB should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 17600 (138%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 should be much (more or less 170%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5440 (170%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1120 (35%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.