GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 430

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 430, which comes with a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 96 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

The GeForce 8600 GTS should theoretically perform 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 bit (about 4%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be much (more or less 93%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 430, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.