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

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 480 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB should be much (more or less 81%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (81%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB is a small bit (approximately 20%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.