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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 has a GPU clock speed of 540 MHz, and the 512 MB of DDR2 memory runs at 400 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 32 Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5670, which has GPU clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 400(80x5) Stream Processors, 20 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 47 Watts
Radeon HD 5670 61 Watts
Difference: 14 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5670 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5670 64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5670 will be much (about 79%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 5670 15500 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 6860 (79%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5670 should be quite a bit (more or less 44%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5670 6200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 4320 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 1880 (44%)

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

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 5670

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 Radeon HD 5670
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2007 January 14, 2010
Code Name G84 Redwood XT
Memory 512 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 775 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 4000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 61 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 64000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 15500 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 6200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 400(80x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 20
Render Output Units 8 8
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 40 nm
Transistors 289 million 627 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.1 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.2

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 5670

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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