GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 8800 GS

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 8800 GS, which has clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 384 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 96 SPUs as well as 48 TAUs and 12 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GS should be 20% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GTS in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS is a lot (about 144%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (144%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS will be a lot (about 22%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (22%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.