GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M380

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M380, which has a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M380 should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (329%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 should be a lot (approximately 363%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31360 (363%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M380 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11680 (270%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 the video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.