GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon R5 M255

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R5 M255, which features a core clock speed of 940 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R5 M255 is 25% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M255 should be much (approximately 118%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		18800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10160 (118%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R5 M255 should be quite a bit (about 74%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		7520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (74%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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