GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 8800 Ultra

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 8800 Ultra, which comes with core clock speeds of 612 MHz on the GPU, and 1080 MHz on the 768 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 128 SPUs along with 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

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 Ultra should theoretically be much better 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 will be a lot (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 using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 Ultra is the winner, and very much so. (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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.