GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M380

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M380, which comes with a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M380 should in theory be quite a bit better 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 should be a lot (more or less 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

The Radeon R9 M380 is much (about 270%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.