GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 8800 Ultra

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 8800 Ultra, which makes use of a 90 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 612 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 1080 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 24 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 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 124 Watts (264%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 Ultra should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 90880 (710%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 Ultra should be quite a bit (more or less 353%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30528 (353%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 Ultra is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10368 (240%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.