GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 275

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 275, which comes with a clock speed of 633 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1134 MHz. It also makes use of a 448-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 240 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 275		219 Watts
	Difference: 172 Watts (366%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 275 should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		127008 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 114208 (892%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 275 should be quite a bit (about 486%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		50640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42000 (486%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 275 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		17724 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13404 (310%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.