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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GT 315

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 has a core clock speed of 540 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 400 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 80 nm design. It is comprised of 32 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 315, which has clock speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 790 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR3 memory. It features 48 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 47 Watts
GeForce GT 315 52 Watts
Difference: 5 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 315 should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 315 25280 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 12480 (98%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 315 should be a small bit (approximately 16%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GT 315 10000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 1360 (16%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 315 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 315 5000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 4320 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 680 (16%)

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

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GT 315

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 GeForce GT 315
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year April 2007 November 2009
Code Name G84 GT216
Memory 512 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 625 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 1580 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 52 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 25280 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 10000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 5000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 48
Texture Mapping Units 16 16
Render Output Units 8 8
Bus Type DDR2 DDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 40 nm
Transistors 289 million 486 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.2

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GT 315

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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