GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 275

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 275, which makes use of a 55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 633 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 1134 MHz on this particular card. It features 240 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 28 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 275		219 Watts
	Difference: 172 Watts (366%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 275 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		127008 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 114208 (892%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 275 will be much (more or less 486%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		50640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42000 (486%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 275 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		17724 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13404 (310%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.