GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 270X, which has GPU clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1280 Stream Processors, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 133 Watts (283%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 270X will be 1300% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (1300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is quite a bit (about 826%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71360 (826%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is quite a bit (about 641%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.