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GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 comes with a clock speed of 540 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 400 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 80 nm design. It is comprised of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 480, which comes with a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 924 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 480 SPUs, 60 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 47 Watts
GeForce GTX 480 250 Watts
Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 480 should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480 177408 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 164608 (1286%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is much (more or less 386%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480 42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 33360 (386%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a lot (more or less 678%) better at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480 33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 4320 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 29280 (678%)

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

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GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2

Amazon.com

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GeForce GTX 480

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 GeForce GTX 480
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year April 2007 March 2010
Code Name G84 GF100
Memory 256 MB 1536 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 700 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 3696 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 250 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 177408 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 42000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 33600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 480
Texture Mapping Units 16 60
Render Output Units 8 48
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 384-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 40 nm
Transistors 289 million 3000 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. 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 ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 480

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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