GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 220 GDDR3

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 1012 MHz on this particular model. It features 48 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		58 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 17 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 220 GDDR3 should in theory be a small bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		32384 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 384 (1%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS is a little bit (about 8%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 220 GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 800 (8%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GTS is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 220 GDDR3		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (8%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.