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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 8800 Ultra

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 makes use of a 80 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 540 MHz. The DDR2 RAM runs at a speed of 400 MHz on this specific card. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the GeForce 8800 Ultra, which features a core clock frequency of 612 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1080 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 90 nm design. It features 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

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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 in theory be quite a bit 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 should be much (more or less 353%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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 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

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

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GeForce 8800 Ultra

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 GeForce 8800 Ultra
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year April 2007 May 2007
Code Name G84 G80
Memory 512 MB 768 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 612 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 2160 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 171 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 103680 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 39168 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 14688 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 128
Texture Mapping Units 16 64
Render Output Units 8 24
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 384-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 90 nm
Transistors 289 million 681 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 8800 Ultra

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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