GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Geforce GTX 780

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 780, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 863 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1502 MHz on this card. It features 2304 SPUs along with 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 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Geforce GTX 780		250 Watts
	Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Geforce GTX 780 should in theory be a lot superior to 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 will be much (more or less 1818%) better at AF 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 the winner, and very much so. (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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.