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

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 370 2G, which has a clock frequency of 975 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1400 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

Theoretically, the Radeon R7 370 2G should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (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 is much (more or less 622%) faster with regards to AF 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 a better choice, and very much so. (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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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