GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which comes with core speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (319%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (900%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (more or less 789%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68160 (789%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (more or less 344%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.