I don't get graphics card which graphics card is better? 9800gtx or 8600GT Super +1GB?

Question

one has 1 gb but the other has 512mb or somthing why is it better?

Answer 1

hi mate

            when looking for a new graphic card its not allways about the amount of memory the card has,there are several other important specs that determine the cards overall speed and performance and these include the core clock,memory clock,shader clock and memory bandwidth

            and by checking these when buying the card will avoid any big suprises when you discover your 512mb card is actually painfully slow

             as for the above cards lets first take a look at their specifications and then compare them to each other !

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nVidia GeForce 9800 GTX

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Manufacturer: nVidia

Series: GeForce 9

GPU: G92  

Release Date: 2008-03-31

Interface: PCI-E 2.0 x16

Core Clock: 675 MHz

Shader Clock: 1688 MHz

Memory Clock: 1100 MHz (2200 DDR)

Memory Bandwidth: 70.4 GB/sec

FLOPS: 432.128 GFLOPS

Pixel Fill Rate: 10800 MPixels/sec

Texture Fill Rate: 43200 MTexels/sec

Max Power Draw: 168 W

Noise Level: Moderate

Framebuffer: 512,1024 MB

Memory Type: GDDR3

Memory Bus Type: 64x4 (256 bit)

DirectX Compliance: 10.0

OpenGL Compliance: 2.1

PS/VS Version: 4.0/4.0

Process: 65 nm

Shader Processors: 128

Pipeline Layout: Scalar MADD+MUL

Texture Units: 64

Raster Operators 16

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nVidia GeForce 8600 GTS

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Manufacturer: nVidia

Series: GeForce 8

GPU: G84  

Release Date: 2007-04-17

Interface: PCI-E x16

Core Clock: 675 MHz

Shader Clock: 1450 MHz

Memory Clock: 1000 MHz (2000 DDR)

Memory Bandwidth: 32 GB/sec

FLOPS: 92.8 GFLOPS

Pixel Fill Rate: 5400 MPixels/sec

Texture Fill Rate: 10800 MTexels/sec

Max Power Draw: 71 W

Noise Level: Moderate

Framebuffer: 256,512 MB

Memory Type: GDDR3

Memory Bus Type: 64x2 (128 bit)

DirectX Compliance: 10.0

OpenGL Compliance: 2.1

PS/VS Version: 4.0/4.0

Process: 80 nm

Shader Processors: 32

Pipeline Layout: Scalar MADD+MUL

Texture Units: 16

Raster Operators 8

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      so as you can see there are some significant differences between these two cards,and first and foremost is the memory bandwidth,the 8600gt-s has a 32gb/sec bandwidth however the 9800gtx has a far superior 70.4gb/sec,this will help especially when you start to push the card

         core and memory clock speeds are around the same with the core clock being 675mhz on both cards and a small 100mhz difference in the memory clock

           so at the ned of the day even though the 8600gt-super has a bigger 1gb memory the other specs are not as good as the 9800gtx with its far superior memory bandwidth

           i have been using a 256mb 7600gt for the last 12 months and have had no graphic memory issues in that time,so 512mb is a safe amount of memory for any p.c

             also depending on which manufactuer you buy the 9800gtx from you may also get a physx chip built into the card,this has started since nvidia bought out ageia who originally released the ageia physx accelerator

             and from what i have heard of the nvidia cards with these physx chips built in they are amazing and with more and more games using the physx code this is a must

            any problems let me know

                       good luck mate !

Answer 2

9800GTX man.

Answer 3

9800GTX is better.

Answer 4

The 8600 GT is vastly less powerful than the 9800GTX. Putting 1GB on an 8600 GT is a really odd thing to do.

Just to give you an idea, 3DMark06 numbers are around:

GTX 260: 20,600

9800GTX: 14,700

8800GT/512MB: 13,800

8800GT/1GB: 12,400

HD3850: 11,500

8600GT/512MB: 5,000

8600GT/1GB: 4,700

Answer 5

the 9800gtx is a lot more powerful than the 8600gt. The 8600gt's 1gig isnt actually utilised. They dont perform any better than the 512meg variant of the same card.

you can compare them here

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?...

what this translates to is a h**l of a lot more performance from the gtx.

However in that price range, the 4850 is a better card again. They retail for about $160 and are much faster than a 9800gtx

[edit]

brianthe~ below - the physx aspect is software-based, and implemented in the cards through drivers. They dont actually have 'physx' hardware built in to them.