GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 5770

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5770, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 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 5770		108 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (130%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5770 is 500% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		76800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5770 will be much (more or less 294%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		34000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25360 (294%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5770 should be a lot (approximately 215%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5770		13600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9280 (215%)

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 (measured 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 bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per 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 number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.