GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Geforce GTX 780

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Geforce GTX 780, which features core speeds of 863 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2304 SPUs as well as 192 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
Geforce GTX 780		250 Watts
	Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Geforce GTX 780 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		288384 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 275584 (2153%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 780 is a lot (more or less 1818%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		165696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 157056 (1818%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 780 is quite a bit (about 859%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		41424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 37104 (859%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

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