GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 480 Stream Processors, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB will be a lot (about 81%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (81%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB is a small bit (about 20%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 880 (20%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.