GeForce 8600 GTS vs Geforce GTX 780

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 780, which comes with a core clock frequency of 863 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 2304 SPUs, 192 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
Geforce GTX 780		250 Watts
	Difference: 175 Watts (233%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 780 will be 801% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GTS in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		288384 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 256384 (801%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 780 will be a lot (about 1434%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		165696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 154896 (1434%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 780 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS, by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		41424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 36024 (667%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.