GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 480, which has 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 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

The GeForce GTX 480 should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (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 (about 386%) faster with regards to 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

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is the winner, by far. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.