GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R7 370 2G

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 370 2G, which has a core clock speed of 975 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1400 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R7 370 2G		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R7 370 2G should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (1300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 370 2G should be much (approximately 622%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		62400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53760 (622%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R7 370 2G is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, by far. (explain)

Radeon R7 370 2G		31200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.