GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features GPU clock speed of 775 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 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 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 59 Watts (126%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be 350% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (350%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be quite a bit (about 44%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3760 (44%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8080 (187%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many 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.