GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 660, which has a clock speed of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1502 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 960 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 93 Watts (198%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 660 should be 1027% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 131392 (1027%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be a lot (approximately 807%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69760 (807%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19200 (444%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.