GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon RX 470 4GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 470 4GB, which makes use of a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 926 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1650 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs along with 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 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon RX 470 4GB		120 Watts
	Difference: 73 Watts (155%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 470 4GB should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		211200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 198400 (1550%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 4GB will be much (about 1272%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		118528 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 109888 (1272%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 4GB should be a lot (approximately 586%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon RX 470 4GB		29632 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25312 (586%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 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 maximum fill rate.