GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 9800 GTX

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GTX, which comes with a core clock frequency of 675 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1100 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is made up of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 93 Watts (198%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9800 GTX should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (450%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be quite a bit (about 400%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34560 (400%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX is a lot (more or less 150%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 many 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.