GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 5570

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5570, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 650 MHz. The DDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 400(80x5) SPUs as well as 20 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5570		43 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8600 GTS, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 5570 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5570		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5570 should be a small bit (about 20%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Radeon HD 5570		13000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (20%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GTS is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5570		5200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 200 (4%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 applied per 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 the texel rate, 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.