GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce 8800 GS

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 8800 GS, which has a clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also features a 192-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is made up of 96 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 12 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
	Difference: 58 Watts (123%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GS should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS is much (about 206%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17760 (206%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GS is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2280 (53%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.