GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs Radeon R7 250X 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 250X 2GB, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this specific card. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
Radeon R7 250X 2GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 48 Watts (102%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R7 250X 2GB should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 59200 (463%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X 2GB will be quite a bit (approximately 363%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31360 (363%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R7 250X 2GB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11680 (270%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.