GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this model. 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 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (113%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be a lot (more or less 250%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27000 (250%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16200 (300%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.