GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), which makes use of a 80 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 540 MHz. The DDR2 memory is set to run at a frequency of 400 MHz on this card. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so in theory they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) will be quite a bit (approximately 140%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5040 (140%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) should be a lot (approximately 140%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8500 GT, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.