GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 590, which comes with core clock speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 855 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

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

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 590 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (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 a lot (more or less 799%) faster with regards to 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 is quite a bit (about 1249%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (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 type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 ability to reach the maximum fill rate.