GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 320

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 320, which comes with core clock speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 790 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 72 SPUs as well as 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 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 320 should be 13% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 2880 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 should be much (more or less 50%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4320 (50%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel rate, so theoretically they should be equally good at at full screen anti-aliasing, and be able to handle the same screen 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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.