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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 has a GPU core clock speed of 540 MHz, and the 512 MB of DDR2 memory runs at 400 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which features GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 975 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 47 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 2GB 190 Watts
Difference: 143 Watts (304%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB 124800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 112000 (875%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB should be a lot (more or less 363%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB 40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 31360 (363%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB will be quite a bit (approximately 270%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB 16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 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

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 Radeon HD 4890 2GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2007 Apr 2, 2009
Code Name G84 RV790 XT
Memory 512 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 1000 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 3900 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 190 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 124800 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 40000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 16000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 40
Render Output Units 8 16
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 55 nm
Transistors 289 million 959 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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