GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 430 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), which has a core clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8600 GTS should theoretically be a bit faster than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 (OEM) is a little bit (more or less 4%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 400 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS is much (about 93%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.