GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 675 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 336 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (256%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should perform much faster than the GeForce 8500 GT in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (800%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be quite a bit (about 950%) better at AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34200 (950%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19800 (1100%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.