GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 5750 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5750 512MB, which features a core clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1150 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 720(144x5) SPUs, 36 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 5750 512MB		86 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (83%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5750 512MB should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5750 512MB		73600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 60800 (475%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5750 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 192%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 5750 512MB		25200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16560 (192%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5750 512MB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5750 512MB		11200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6880 (159%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.