GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 320

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 320, which has core speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 790 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 72 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8600 GTS should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 320 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 6720 (27%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 will be a bit (more or less 20%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2160 (20%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GTS is superior to the GeForce GT 320, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1080 (25%)

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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to 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 potential to reach the maximum fill rate.