GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 850 MHz on this particular card. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 340 1GB should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (143%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB should be a lot (more or less 104%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8960 (104%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 340 1GB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 80 (2%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few 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.