GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 280X, which has clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 265600 (1186%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (about 1159%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 100160 (1159%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22880 (530%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.