GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 570, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 732 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 950 MHz on this particular card. It features 480 SPUs along with 60 TAUs and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (192%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 570 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 8600 GTS in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 120000 (375%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 should be quite a bit (more or less 307%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33120 (307%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be quite a bit (approximately 442%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23880 (442%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.