GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 660 Ti

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 660 Ti, which features a core clock frequency of 915 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1344 SPUs, 112 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		144000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (350%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti will be much (about 849%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		102480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 91680 (849%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		21960 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16560 (307%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type 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 can be 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.