GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 122 Watts (163%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (300%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (more or less 611%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66000 (611%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13800 (256%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.