GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 8600 GTS

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 8600 GTS, which has GPU clock speed of 675 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 32 Stream Processors, 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 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8600 GTS should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be a lot (about 25%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2160 (25%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS is a lot (approximately 25%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.