GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 430 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, which has a clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 96 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8600 GTS should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce GT 430 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB should be a small bit (approximately 4%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 400 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be much (more or less 93%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out 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 video 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.