GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R7 370 2G

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 370 2G, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 975 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1400 MHz on this model. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon R7 370 2G		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R7 370 2G should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 156800 (700%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 370 2G is quite a bit (more or less 622%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		62400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53760 (622%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R7 370 2G is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		31200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26880 (622%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.