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

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

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

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is 800% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general, because of its higher data rate. (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 is much (approximately 247%) faster with regards to texture 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 will be a lot (more or less 178%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied 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 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.