GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GT 130

Intro

Compare that 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 runs at a frequency of 250 MHz on this card. It features 48 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GT 130		75 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8500 GT should in theory be a bit better than the GeForce GT 130 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 130		12000 MB/sec
	Difference: 800 (7%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 130 should be a lot (approximately 233%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GT 130		12000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (233%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 130 should be much (more or less 344%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 130		8000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6200 (344%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.