GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare that to the Geforce GTX 680, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1006 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1502 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1536 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 148 Watts (315%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 680 will be 1402% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 179456 (1402%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 is quite a bit (more or less 1390%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 120128 (1390%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27872 (645%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.