GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 270X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1400 MHz on this card. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (140%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 270X should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (460%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is quite a bit (more or less 641%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69200 (641%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be a lot (about 493%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26600 (493%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB 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 its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.