GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 1100 MHz on this specific model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTS 250 1GB is 120% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (120%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 337%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36432 (337%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB is much (about 119%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6408 (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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