GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6970, which has a GPU core clock speed of 880 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1375 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1536 Stream Processors, 96 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6970 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153600 (686%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be quite a bit (approximately 878%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 75840 (878%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23840 (552%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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