GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 7990

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7990, which features a core clock speed of 950 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 7990		375 Watts
	Difference: 328 Watts (698%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7990 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7990		576000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 553600 (2471%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7990 will be quite a bit (approximately 2715%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 7990		243200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 234560 (2715%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7990 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7990		60800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 56480 (1307%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.