GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce 8600 GTS

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 8600 GTS, which features clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8600 GTS will be 43% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (43%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be a lot (approximately 25%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2160 (25%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be a lot (approximately 25%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1080 (25%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels 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 number of colour ROPs 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.