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GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 uses a 80 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 540 MHz. The DDR2 memory works at a frequency of 400 MHz on this model. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all that to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, which makes use of a 80 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 540 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 700 MHz on this specific card. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, in theory, should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 22400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 9600 (75%)

Texel Rate

Both cards have the exact same texel rate, so theoretically they should be equally good at at AF. (explain)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have exactly the same pixel rate, so in theory they should be equally good at at AA, and be capable of handling the same screen resolutions. (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

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GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2

Amazon.com

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3

Amazon.com

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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

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year April 2007 April 2007
Code Name G84 G84
Memory 1024 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 540 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 1400 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 47 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 22400 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 8640 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 4320 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 32
Texture Mapping Units 16 16
Render Output Units 8 8
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 80 nm
Transistors 289 million 289 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

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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