GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6790, which comes with GPU clock speed of 840 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
	Difference: 103 Watts (219%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6790 should in theory be much better than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (950%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 is much (more or less 289%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24960 (289%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6790 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9120 (211%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across 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 memory, it 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.