GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4670 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4670 1GB, which has a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR4/GDDR3/DDR3/DDR2 memory frequency of 1100 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 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 4670 1GB		70 Watts
	Difference: 23 Watts (49%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4670 1GB will be 175% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		35200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (175%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 1GB is much (about 178%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		24000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15360 (178%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4670 1GB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.