GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R7 M360

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 M360, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1125 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 64-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R7 M360 should be 25% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R7 M360		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 M360 will be quite a bit (about 213%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R7 M360		27000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18360 (213%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 M360 will be a lot (more or less 108%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R7 M360		9000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4680 (108%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.