GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 480, which has a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 924 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 480 SPUs, 60 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 203 Watts (432%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should be 692% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 155008 (692%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a lot (more or less 386%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33360 (386%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29280 (678%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.