GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340, which features core clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GT 340 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (143%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 should be quite a bit (more or less 104%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8960 (104%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 is just a bit (more or less 2%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 80 (2%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.