GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 570, which features a clock frequency of 732 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 950 MHz. It also makes use of a 320-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 480 SPUs, 60 Texture Address Units, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

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

The GeForce GTX 570, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 should be much (about 307%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS, and very much so. (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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.