GeForce 8300 GS (OEM) vs GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, which uses a 80 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 540 MHz. The DDR2 RAM works at a speed of 400 MHz on this particular model. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		40 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 is quite a bit (approximately 380%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		1800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6840 (380%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 will be quite a bit (approximately 380%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM), and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3420 (380%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.