GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 270X, which features GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 133 Watts (283%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 270X should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 156800 (700%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be a lot (more or less 826%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71360 (826%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

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