GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which has clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs as well as 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 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 113 Watts (240%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 92800 (414%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB is much (about 338%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29160 (338%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17280 (400%)

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.