GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 260 Core 216

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 576 MHz, and 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also is made up of 216 Stream Processors, 72 Texture Address Units, and 28 Raster Operation 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 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 155 Watts (330%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 should in theory be much better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 99088 (774%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 will be a lot (approximately 380%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32832 (380%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11808 (273%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.