GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6850, which has core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 960 SPUs along with 48 TAUs and 32 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 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (170%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6850 should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105600 (471%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is much (about 331%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28560 (331%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 should be a lot (approximately 474%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20480 (474%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.