GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 470, which features core speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 837 MHz on the 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 448 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 40 Rasterization Operator 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

In theory, 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 will be a lot (approximately 844%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is superior to the GeForce 8500 GT, by far. (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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen 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 number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.