GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GT 430

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 430, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 700 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 96 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
	Difference: 13 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 430 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 should be quite a bit (approximately 30%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2560 (30%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) will be much (more or less 54%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.