GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which has a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3690/3830, in theory, should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 4096 (18%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 will be much (approximately 24%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2048 (24%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3690/3830 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.