GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GT 450 (OEM)

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 450 (OEM), which has clock speeds of 790 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 144 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		106 Watts
	Difference: 59 Watts (126%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 450 (OEM) should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 450 (OEM) will be much (about 119%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10320 (119%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 450 (OEM) is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14640 (339%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its 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 the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.