GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M295X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1375 MHz on this model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
	Difference: 78 Watts (166%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M295X is 1275% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 163200 (1275%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X will be quite a bit (more or less 1011%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 87360 (1011%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M295X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19680 (456%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.