GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Geforce GTX 760

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 760, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 980 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1502 MHz on this card. It features 1152 SPUs as well as 96 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Geforce GTX 760		170 Watts
	Difference: 123 Watts (262%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Geforce GTX 760 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 760		192256 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 169856 (758%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 760 will be much (more or less 989%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Geforce GTX 760		94080 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 85440 (989%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 760 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Geforce GTX 760		31360 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27040 (626%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.