GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Geforce GTX 780

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 780, which has core speeds of 863 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2304 SPUs along with 192 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Geforce GTX 780		250 Watts
	Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Geforce GTX 780, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		288384 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 275584 (2153%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 780 will be much (about 1818%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		165696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 157056 (1818%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 780 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		41424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 37104 (859%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to 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 bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.