GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580, which has a core clock speed of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1002 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 512 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 197 Watts (419%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 179584 (1403%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be quite a bit (about 472%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40768 (472%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32736 (758%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.