GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 975 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 143 Watts (304%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4890 1GB will be 457% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (457%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB is much (more or less 363%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31360 (363%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB should be much (about 270%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11680 (270%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.