GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460, which comes with core clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 768 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 should be 170% faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 54400 (170%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 should be a lot (approximately 250%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27000 (250%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 is much (more or less 200%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10800 (200%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.