GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R7 M260

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 M260, which has GPU core speed of 715 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 384 Stream Processors, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R7 M260 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260 is a lot (about 99%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260		17160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8520 (99%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260 will be quite a bit (approximately 32%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260		5720 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1400 (32%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.