GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTS 150

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTS 150, which uses a 55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 740 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 500 MHz on this particular card. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 is much (approximately 339%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36560 (339%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 should be quite a bit (more or less 119%) better at AA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6440 (119%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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