GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 1030

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 1030, which features core clock speeds of 1265 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 384 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 1030 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 17152 (54%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 is quite a bit (about 275%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29680 (275%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 should be quite a bit (approximately 275%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14840 (275%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.