GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460, which features core speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 768 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 103 Watts (219%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (286%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be quite a bit (about 338%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29160 (338%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be quite a bit (more or less 275%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11880 (275%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.