GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5, which comes with a core clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		70 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (325%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 will be quite a bit (about 389%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14000 (389%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (144%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.