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GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 comes with a GPU clock speed of 540 MHz, and the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM runs at 700 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 32 Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Compare all that to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, which makes use of a 80 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 540 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a frequency of 700 MHz on this model. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 TAUs 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 exactly the same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

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

Pixel Rate

Both cards have exactly the same pixel fill rate, so theoretically they should be 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 GDDR3

Amazon.com

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3

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 GDDR3 GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3
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 1400 MHz 1400 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 47 watts
Bandwidth 22400 MB/sec 22400 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 GDDR3 GDDR3
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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3

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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