GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 660, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 980 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1502 MHz on this card. It features 960 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (211%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 131392 (1027%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be quite a bit (more or less 2078%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 74800 (2078%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21720 (1207%)

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 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 the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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, 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its 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 output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.