GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5670, which features GPU clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 400(80x5) Stream Processors, 20 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

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

The Radeon HD 5670, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5670 should be much (approximately 79%) more effective at AF 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 will be quite a bit (approximately 44%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.