GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

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

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 is 900% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (approximately 789%) faster with regards to 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 AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.