GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 590, which comes with a clock speed of 607 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 855 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 318 Watts (677%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 590 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 315520 (2465%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be quite a bit (approximately 799%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69056 (799%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 will be quite a bit (approximately 1249%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 53952 (1249%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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