GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, which comes with a clock speed of 650 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 65/55 nm design. It is comprised of 64 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 48 Watts (102%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (350%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 141%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12160 (141%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6080 (141%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.