GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 780 Ti

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 780 Ti, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 875 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1750 MHz on this card. It features 2880 SPUs along with 240 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 780 Ti		250 Watts
	Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 780 Ti		336000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 313600 (1400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 780 Ti is a lot (about 2331%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 780 Ti		210000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 201360 (2331%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 780 Ti is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 780 Ti		42000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 37680 (872%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.