GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 430 (OEM)

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 96 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8600 GTS is 11% faster than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 (OEM) is a small bit (about 4%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 400 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be much (approximately 93%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (93%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.