GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R9 285

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 285, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 918 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1375 MHz on this specific model. It features 1792 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon R9 285		190 Watts
	Difference: 143 Watts (304%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 285 will be 1275% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 285		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 163200 (1275%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 285 is a lot (more or less 1090%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R9 285		102816 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 94176 (1090%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 285 is much (approximately 580%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 285		29376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25056 (580%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.