GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 9800 GTX+

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, which has clock speeds of 738 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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+		145 Watts
	Difference: 98 Watts (209%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ should in theory be quite a bit superior to 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+ should be much (approximately 447%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38592 (447%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ should be a lot (more or less 173%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7488 (173%)

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 transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.