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GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 has a clock speed of 540 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 700 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 80 nm design. It is made up of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, which comes with a clock frequency of 540 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 700 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 80 nm design. It is made up of 32 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

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

Pixel Rate

Both cards have exactly the same pixel rate, so in theory they should perform equally good at at full screen anti-aliasing, and be able to handle 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 GT 1GB GDDR3

Amazon.com

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3

Amazon.com

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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 GT 1GB GDDR3 GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year April 2007 April 2007
Code Name G84 G84
Memory 1024 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 540 MHz
Memory Speed 1400 MHz 1400 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 47 watts
Bandwidth 22400 MB/sec 22400 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 GDDR3 GDDR3
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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends 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.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

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.

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