GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 104 Watts (221%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (950%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit (approximately 483%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41760 (483%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24480 (567%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.