GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 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 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 320 SPUs as well as 20 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R5 M230 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 will be a lot (more or less 81%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (81%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 will be much (about 38%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R5 M230, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

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