GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4750

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4750, which features GPU core speed of 730 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 640(128x5) Stream Processors, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 4750		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4750 is 300% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4750		51200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4750 is quite a bit (approximately 170%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4750		23360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14720 (170%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4750 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4750		11680 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7360 (170%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.