GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 607 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 837 MHz on this particular model. It features 448 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 168 Watts (357%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 470 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121120 (946%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 is quite a bit (approximately 293%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25352 (293%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 is much (about 462%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19960 (462%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.