GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Geforce GTX 770

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Geforce GTX 770, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 1046 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1753 MHz on this card. It features 1536 SPUs along with 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Geforce GTX 770		230 Watts
	Difference: 183 Watts (389%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Geforce GTX 770, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 770		224384 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 211584 (1653%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 770 will be a lot (about 1450%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Geforce GTX 770		133888 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 125248 (1450%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 770 will be quite a bit (approximately 675%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Geforce GTX 770		33472 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29152 (675%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a 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 - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.