GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce 9800 GTX

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9800 GTX, which features a clock speed of 675 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1100 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is made up of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 93 Watts (198%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GTX should in theory be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (450%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be a lot (more or less 400%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34560 (400%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be quite a bit (more or less 150%) better at AA than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6480 (150%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type 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, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card 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 colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.