GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 470, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 607 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 837 MHz on this card. It features 448 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 168 Watts (357%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 470 should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121120 (946%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 is much (approximately 293%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25352 (293%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.