GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5830, which features GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (133%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5830 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is much (approximately 315%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34000 (315%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is quite a bit (more or less 137%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7400 (137%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.