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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4670 512MB

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 comes with clock speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 memory. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4670 512MB, which features a clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR4/GDDR3/DDR3/DDR2 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 47 Watts
Radeon HD 4670 512MB 70 Watts
Difference: 23 Watts (49%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4670 512MB should in theory be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB 32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 512MB should be quite a bit (about 178%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB 24000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 15360 (178%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4670 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB 6000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 4320 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 1680 (39%)

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

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4670 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 Radeon HD 4670 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2007 Sep 10, 2008
Code Name G84 RV730 XT
Memory 512 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 750 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 2000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 70 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 32000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 24000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 6000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 32
Render Output Units 8 8
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR4/GDDR3/DDR3/DDR2
Bus Width 128-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 55 nm
Transistors 289 million 514 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16, AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 are 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 graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4670 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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