Compare any two graphics cards:
GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2
IntroThe GeForce 8500 GT makes use of a 80 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 450 MHz. The DDR2 RAM runs at a speed of 400 MHz on this particular card. It features 16 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.Compare those specifications to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, which comes with a core clock frequency of 540 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 400 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 80 nm design. It is made up of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.
Display Graphs
Power Usage and Theoretical BenchmarksPower Consumption (Max TDP)
Memory BandwidthBoth cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform exactly the same. (explain)
Texel RateThe GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is quite a bit (about 140%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)
Pixel RateIf running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is superior to the GeForce 8500 GT, and very much so. (explain)
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
Display Prices
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though. Specifications
Display Specifications
Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 high resolutions. Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second. Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.
Display Prices
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.
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