GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1200 MHz on this card. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 141 Watts (300%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5870 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 140800 (1100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is quite a bit (more or less 687%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59360 (687%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22880 (530%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.