GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 560 Ti

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 822 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this card. It features 384 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 560 Ti		170 Watts
	Difference: 123 Watts (262%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		128256 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105856 (473%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti will be quite a bit (more or less 509%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		52608 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 43968 (509%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti will be much (more or less 509%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		26304 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21984 (509%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.