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GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 comes with core speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 1024 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, which uses a 80 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 540 MHz. The DDR2 memory works at a speed of 400 MHz on this card. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

Both cards have the exact same texel rate, so in theory they should perform equally good at at anisotropic filtering. (explain)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel fill rate, so in theory they should perform equally good at at anti-aliasing, and be capable of handling the same resolutions. (explain)

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 1GB DDR2

Amazon.com

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

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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 1GB DDR2 GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year April 2007 April 2007
Code Name G84 G84
Memory 1024 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 540 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 47 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 12800 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 8640 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 4320 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 32
Texture Mapping Units 16 16
Render Output Units 8 8
Bus Type DDR2 DDR2
Bus Width 128-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 80 nm
Transistors 289 million 289 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

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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