GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 420, which has GPU clock speed of 700 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 48 Stream Processors, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8600 GTS should theoretically be a small bit better than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS should be much (approximately 93%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (93%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (93%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.