GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 570, which has clock speeds of 732 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory. 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 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 172 Watts (366%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 570 is 579% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 129600 (579%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 should be much (about 408%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35280 (408%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24960 (578%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.