GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 850 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 103 Watts (219%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (750%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should be much (about 321%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27760 (321%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16480 (381%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.