GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 440 1.5GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 594 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 144 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 11200 (35%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is a lot (more or less 32%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3456 (32%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS, by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8856 (164%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.