GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs GeForce GT 320

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 320, which has GPU clock speed of 540 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 790 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 72 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 320 should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 12480 (98%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 should be quite a bit (more or less 50%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4320 (50%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel rate, so in theory they should perform equally good at at anti-aliasing, and be able to handle the same resolutions. (explain)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.