GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce GT 430 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
	Difference: 13 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 430 1GB should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB should be a lot (approximately 30%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2560 (30%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.