GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 430 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), which features GPU clock speed of 700 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 96 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8600 GTS should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 (OEM) is just a bit (about 4%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 400 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be quite a bit (more or less 93%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.