GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 8800 GT 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, which has a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 700 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is made up of 112 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should be 40% faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (40%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB will be quite a bit (more or less 211%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (211%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is a lot (approximately 78%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (78%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.