GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 103 Watts (219%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (800%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB should be quite a bit (approximately 247%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21360 (247%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB is much (more or less 178%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7680 (178%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.