GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M280X, which has a GPU core clock speed of 900 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1375 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 896 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M280X should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 75200 (588%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is a lot (approximately 483%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41760 (483%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M280X is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10080 (233%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.