GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 750 Ti

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 750 Ti, which comes with a clock frequency of 1020 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1350 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 750 Ti		60 Watts
	Difference: 13 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 750 Ti should in theory be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 750 Ti		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (286%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 750 Ti is a lot (approximately 372%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 750 Ti		40800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32160 (372%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 750 Ti is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 750 Ti		16320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (278%)

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 a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.