GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 780 Ti

Intro

Compare that 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 RAM works at a speed of 1750 MHz on this particular model. It features 2880 SPUs along with 240 TAUs and 48 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 780 Ti		250 Watts
	Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 780 Ti		336000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 323200 (2525%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 780 Ti should be much (approximately 2331%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 780 Ti		210000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 201360 (2331%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 780 Ti should be a lot (approximately 872%) better at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 780 Ti		42000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.