GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 4670 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4670 512MB, which comes with GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR4/GDDR3/DDR3/DDR2 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB		70 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 512MB will be quite a bit (about 122%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB		24000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13200 (122%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4670 512MB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB		6000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 600 (11%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of 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.