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

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 675 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 113 Watts (240%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be quite a bit (about 338%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.