GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which features core clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 103 Watts (219%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is 386% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 86400 (386%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should be much (approximately 321%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27760 (321%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16480 (381%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.