GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460, which features a clock speed of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 336 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 54400 (170%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 should be quite a bit (approximately 250%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27000 (250%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10800 (200%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one 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 higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core 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 output rate is also dependant 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.