GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 420, which comes with core speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 memory. 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 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 420 should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) should be a lot (approximately 54%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3040 (54%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) is superior to the GeForce GT 420, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1520 (54%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.