GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 465

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 465, which comes with core speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 802 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 352 SPUs as well as 44 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 465		200 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (167%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 465 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		102592 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 70592 (221%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 465 is a lot (about 147%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		26708 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15908 (147%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 465 should be quite a bit (about 260%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		19424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14024 (260%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per 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 clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.