GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 430

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 430, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this model. It features 96 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
	Difference: 13 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 430 should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 is much (about 30%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2560 (30%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1520 (54%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.