GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 M390X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M390X, which features GPU clock speed of 723 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2048 Stream Processors, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R9 M390X		125 Watts
	Difference: 78 Watts (166%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M390X should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		160000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (1150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M390X will be much (approximately 971%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		92544 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 83904 (971%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M390X is quite a bit (approximately 436%) better at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		23136 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18816 (436%)

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 transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.