GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 420, which features core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 48 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8600 GTS should in theory be a bit superior to the GeForce GT 420 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS should be quite a bit (about 93%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (93%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GTS is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (93%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out 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 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 amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.