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GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GTS comes with a GPU core speed of 675 MHz, and the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory runs at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should theoretically be much better 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 should be a lot (about 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

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (about 256%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (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

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GeForce 8600 GTS

Amazon.com

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GeForce 9800 GX2

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 GTS GeForce 9800 GX2
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year April 2007 Mar 2008
Code Name G84 G92
Memory 512 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 675 MHz 600 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 2000 MHz 2000 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 75 watts 197 watts
Bandwidth 32000 MB/sec 128000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 10800 Mtexels/sec 76800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 5400 Mpixels/sec 19200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 128 (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 16 64 (x2)
Render Output Units 8 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 80 nm 65 nm
Transistors 289 million 754 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe x16 2.0
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed per 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 better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GTS

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 9800 GX2

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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