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GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) has a GPU core speed of 540 MHz, and the 256 MB of DDR2 memory runs at 400 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which features a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) 47 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2 197 Watts
Difference: 150 Watts (319%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 is 900% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 115200 (900%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be much (more or less 789%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 68160 (789%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (approximately 344%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and also should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) 4320 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 14880 (344%)

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 GS (OEM)

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

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 GS (OEM) GeForce 9800 GX2
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year April 2007 Mar 2008
Code Name G84 G92
Memory 256 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 540 MHz 600 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 800 MHz 2000 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 197 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 128000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 76800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 19200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 128 (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 16 64 (x2)
Render Output Units 8 16 (x2)
Bus Type DDR2 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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)

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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