GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which comes with core 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 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 113 Watts (240%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (800%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be much (more or less 338%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29160 (338%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be a lot (more or less 400%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.