GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, which makes use of a 80 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 540 MHz. The DDR2 memory is set to run at a speed of 400 MHz on this card. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 will be quite a bit (about 140%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5040 (140%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2520 (140%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.