GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs GeForce GT 130

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 130, which makes use of a 55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 500 MHz. The DDR2 memory is set to run at a speed of 250 MHz on this specific model. It features 48 SPUs as well as 24 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GT 130		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 should be a small bit faster than the GeForce GT 130 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 130		12000 MB/sec
	Difference: 800 (7%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 130 will be much (about 39%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GT 130		12000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3360 (39%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 130 is quite a bit (more or less 85%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 130		8000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3680 (85%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. 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.