GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce 8800 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 112 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 58 Watts (123%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 35200 (157%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB will be much (more or less 289%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24960 (289%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5280 (122%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.