GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 420, which has a GPU core clock speed of 700 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 48 Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 420 should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 should be quite a bit (approximately 54%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3040 (54%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 will be much (more or less 54%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.