GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R7 M260X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 M260X, which comes with core speeds of 825 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 384 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R7 M260X is 400% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260X should be a lot (about 129%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		19800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11160 (129%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R7 M260X is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2280 (53%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.