GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M380

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M380, which comes with core clock speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M380 should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 is much (approximately 363%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31360 (363%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M380 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.