GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 8800 GT 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 700 MHz on this model. It features 112 SPUs as well as 56 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 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (40%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB will be quite a bit (about 211%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (211%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (78%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per 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 - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many 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.