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

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 600 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 700 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 112 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (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 is a lot (more or less 289%) better 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 lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, 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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's 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 also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.