GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce 8800 GS

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 8800 GS, which has core speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 384 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 96 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 12 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
	Difference: 58 Watts (123%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 GS should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS will be much (about 206%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17760 (206%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GS is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2280 (53%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.