GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Geforce GTX 780

Intro

Compare all that 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 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator 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 780		250 Watts
	Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Geforce GTX 780 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		288384 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 275584 (2153%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 780 should be a lot (about 1818%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		165696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 157056 (1818%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 780 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, by a large margin. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		41424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.