GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Geforce GTX 690

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Geforce GTX 690		300 Watts
	Difference: 253 Watts (538%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Geforce GTX 690 will be 1617% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		384512 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 362112 (1617%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 is much (more or less 2611%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		234240 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 225600 (2611%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 690 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and very much so. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		58560 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.