GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M380

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M380, which features core speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M380, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 is much (approximately 363%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31360 (363%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M380 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.