GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which has a clock frequency of 607 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 837 MHz. It also makes use of a 320-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 448 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 170 Watts (378%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 470 should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121120 (946%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 is a lot (more or less 844%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30392 (844%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is superior to the GeForce 8500 GT, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22480 (1249%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.