GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which has core clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. 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 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (256%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (800%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be much (more or less 950%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34200 (950%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is superior to the GeForce 8500 GT, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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