GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 480, which comes with clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 924 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should be 1286% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 164608 (1286%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be quite a bit (approximately 386%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33360 (386%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be much (approximately 678%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.