GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GT 430

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 430, which has a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory 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 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
	Difference: 13 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 430, in theory, should perform a lot faster than 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 is much (more or less 30%) more effective at texture 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) should be much (about 54%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 430, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 max fill rate.