GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Geforce GTX 690

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Geforce GTX 690, which has a clock frequency of 915 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1502 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Geforce GTX 690		300 Watts
	Difference: 253 Watts (538%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 690 will be 2904% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		384512 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 371712 (2904%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 should be much (approximately 2611%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		234240 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 225600 (2611%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 will be a lot (more or less 1256%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		58560 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 54240 (1256%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.