GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 430

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 430, which features core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 96 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8600 GTS should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GT 430 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 is a little bit (about 4%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GTS is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.