GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 668 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 828 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 3850 1GB		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3850 1GB should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 40192 (314%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB will be much (more or less 24%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2048 (24%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 1GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6368 (147%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card 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 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.