GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTS 150

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 150, which uses a 55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 740 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 500 MHz on this card. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 16 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 GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (200%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTS 150 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 is much (about 448%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38720 (448%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 150 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7520 (174%)

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 past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out 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 it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.