GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R5 M330

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R5 M330, which comes with a clock frequency of 1030 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 320 SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R5 M330 will be 13% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R5 M330		14400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M330 is quite a bit (approximately 138%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R5 M330		20600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11960 (138%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R5 M330 is much (about 91%) better at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R5 M330		8240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3920 (91%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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