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GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) makes use of a 80 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 540 MHz. The DDR2 RAM runs at a speed of 400 MHz on this specific card. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, which features a core clock speed of 540 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 400 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 80 nm design. It features 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

Both cards have the exact same texel fill rate, so in theory they should be equally good at at AF. (explain)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel rate, so in theory they should be equally good at at FSAA, and be capable of handling the same screen resolutions. (explain)

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

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GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)

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GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model	GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)	GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	April 2007	April 2007
Code Name	G84	G84
Memory	256 MB	1024 MB
Core Speed	540 MHz	540 MHz
Memory Speed	800 MHz	800 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	47 watts	47 watts
Bandwidth	12800 MB/sec	12800 MB/sec
Texel Rate	8640 Mtexels/sec	8640 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	4320 Mpixels/sec	4320 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	32	32
Texture Mapping Units	16	16
Render Output Units	8	8
Bus Type	DDR2	DDR2
Bus Width	128-bit	128-bit
Fab Process	80 nm	80 nm
Transistors	289 million	289 million
Bus	PCIe x16	PCIe x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

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