GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce GT 1030

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 1030, which has a clock speed of 1265 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1502 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and uses a 16 nm design. It is made up of 384 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 17 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 1030, in theory, should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 36352 (284%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 should be a lot (about 369%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31840 (369%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GT 1030 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15920 (369%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure 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 graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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