GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 420, which has core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 48 SPUs along with 8 TAUs 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

In theory, the GeForce GT 420 will be 125% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) will be much (more or less 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

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) should be much (about 54%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.