GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 380 2G

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 380 2G, which features a core clock frequency of 970 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1425 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R9 380 2G		190 Watts
	Difference: 143 Watts (304%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 380 2G is 1325% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		182400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 169600 (1325%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 2G is quite a bit (approximately 1157%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		108640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 100000 (1157%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380 2G is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26720 (619%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.