GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon R5 M330

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R5 M330, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1030 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory running at 900 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is made up of 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R5 M330 should be 13% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R5 M330		14400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M330 will be a lot (approximately 138%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon R5 M330		20600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11960 (138%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R5 M330 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R5 M330		8240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3920 (91%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.