GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R5 M230, which has GPU core speed of 780 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 320 Stream Processors, 20 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 should in theory be much superior to the Radeon R5 M230 in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (40%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 should be much (about 81%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (81%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 will be quite a bit (about 38%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R5 M230, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 figure 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 video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.