GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R5 M230, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 780 MHz. The DDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 320 SPUs as well as 20 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon R5 M230 in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (40%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 should be much (more or less 81%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (81%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 is superior to the Radeon R5 M230, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (38%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.