Compare any two graphics cards:

GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 8800 GS

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GTS makes use of a 80 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 8800 GS, which features a clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GS should be a small bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS should be much (approximately 144%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (144%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS is much (about 22%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (22%)

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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 8600 GTS

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 8800 GS

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.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model	GeForce 8600 GTS	GeForce 8800 GS
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	April 2007	Jan 2008
Code Name	G84	G92
Memory	512 MB	384 MB
Core Speed	675 MHz	550 MHz
Memory Speed	2000 MHz	1600 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	75 watts	105 watts
Bandwidth	32000 MB/sec	38400 MB/sec
Texel Rate	10800 Mtexels/sec	26400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	5400 Mpixels/sec	6600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	32	96
Texture Mapping Units	16	48
Render Output Units	8	12
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR3
Bus Width	128-bit	192-bit
Fab Process	80 nm	65 nm
Transistors	289 million	754 million
Bus	PCIe x16	PCIe x16 2.0
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 per second. This figure 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices