GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce 9800 GX2

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which comes with GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 128 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (319%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105600 (471%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (about 789%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68160 (789%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.