GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which features clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 480 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		50 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB will be a lot (about 44%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (44%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS is a little bit (about 4%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 200 (4%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.