GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 430

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 430, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 700 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 96 SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
	Difference: 13 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 430 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 should be a lot (about 30%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2560 (30%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.