GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon R7 250

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 250, which comes with GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1150 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R7 250		65 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R7 250 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 250		73600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (229%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250 is much (approximately 178%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R7 250		24000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15360 (178%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 250 should be a lot (more or less 85%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R7 250		8000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3680 (85%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill 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 max fill rate.