GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 8800 GT 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 700 MHz on this card. It features 112 SPUs as well as 56 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 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 58 Watts (123%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is 250% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (250%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should be quite a bit (more or less 289%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24960 (289%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5280 (122%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.