GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M385X, which comes with GPU core speed of 1100 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 896 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M385X should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (329%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X will be a lot (more or less 613%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52960 (613%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X should be quite a bit (more or less 307%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13280 (307%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip could 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 core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.