GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 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 RAM runs at a frequency of 1400 MHz on this specific model. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 133 Watts (283%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 270X, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 156800 (700%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is much (more or less 826%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71360 (826%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is a lot (approximately 641%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27680 (641%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record 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 the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.