GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), which features core speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) will be quite a bit (more or less 66%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3440 (66%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1720 (66%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are 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 better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.