GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Geforce GTX 670

Intro

Compare all of that to the Geforce GTX 670, which has a core clock speed of 915 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1344 SPUs, 112 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Geforce GTX 670		170 Watts
	Difference: 123 Watts (262%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Geforce GTX 670 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		192000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 179200 (1400%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 670 is quite a bit (approximately 1086%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		102480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 93840 (1086%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 670 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24960 (578%)

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 transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of 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 handling 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 chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.