GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 9800 GTX+

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, which comes with core clock speeds of 738 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
	Difference: 98 Watts (209%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (450%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be quite a bit (approximately 447%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38592 (447%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be a lot (more or less 173%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7488 (173%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over 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 type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.