GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5970, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 1600 SPUs along with 160 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 247 Watts (526%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5970 should be 1043% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 233600 (1043%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be much (more or less 2585%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 223360 (2585%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be a lot (more or less 2048%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 88480 (2048%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 processed in one second. This figure 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 card will be at handling 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 one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.