GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 660, which has clock speeds of 980 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 960 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (87%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 660 should in theory be much better than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112192 (351%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be quite a bit (about 626%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67600 (626%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is much (approximately 336%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18120 (336%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.