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Pre-P.S. I am sorry for how long this is.
Sorry for what may turn out to be a stupid question, but I am run into a bit of an issue in that there doesn't seem to be any easy way to compare different graphics cards across different generations. The reason I ask is that I am trying to find a laptop that can at least provide equal performance to the desktop I have now, it turns out that it’s not as easy as I hoped.
I currently have a 7800GT, and I for example was looking at the 8600M GT to see how it compared as its available as the 570M (you know where) and in the GeForce version in many other 15.4" laptops.
My first thought is that benchmarks would provide a proper way to see real world changes, however there are so many variables in benchmarking systems that it seems impossible to compare, not to mention that games are used for relatively short period of times, so it’s hard to see how one game is played on a GeForce 6 vs. GeForce 7 vs. GeForce 8.
The next thought was synthetic benchmarks, and I found that they made (some) sense. The scores for both cards ranged from about 3000-4000 with the most commons scores being 3300-3700. The 7800GT was generally a tiny bit on the higher end, and the 8600M GT on the lower. This was fine, but conflict with the next part...
After scrounging around for a while longer I was told that the texture fill rate would provide a good way to compare. Looking on nVidia's 7 series page:
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 54.4
Fill Rate (Billion pixels/sec) 13.2
Looking at a random review site for the 8600M GT for example:
22.4 GB/s RAM Bandwidth (makes sense as the RAM is 128 bit vs. 256 bit)
7.6 GT Texture Fill Rate
This suggests that the 8600M GT has only 58% of the performance of a 7800GT, while the synthetic benchmarks suggest that they are very close, or within 20% of either other in computing power. So tell me, is one of these correct, is there a better way?, or is this a hopeless endeavor of compare and I should just hide under a rock and be sad?
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Its a little harder to compare the 7 series to the 8 series than say the 6 series to 7 series because of the major change in architecture (implementation of shaders). I would say that the best thing to do is look at the performance threads for the 8600gt (look at fps in games you already have) and compare that to the fps you get on your 7800gt. I don't think that those raw numbers that suggest the 8600gt is only 58% as fast are as accurate as the synthetic benchmarks since they don't show the improved efficiency of the new generation especially in shader intensive games. My guess is the 8600gt is close to the performance of your 7800gt (80% as powerful sounds about right) in newer games at a low resolution like 1280x800 or 1440x900. At higher resolutions like 1900x1200 in older games like WOW where your 7800gt can run fine the 8600gt will likely struggle because of the lower bandwidth. Having never owned either cards I can't say for sure though and hope this helps
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K. I don't expect to run any games at the 1080p resolution as I mostly play FPS and only RTS every once in a while so its nice to know that won't really be an issue for me. Its disapointing that the 8600M GT is a little worse as I am starting to feel like my current card is getting dated and an upgrade would have been nice. Its really to bad that the 9 series is a scam and not a full upgrade like the last two changes in the series.
Yeah I quoted the desktop card as I own the desktop card. A good reminder that mobile cards are always lower spec for their generation though.
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Real Methods of Comparing Graphics Cards
Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by AuroraAlpha, Jun 26, 2008.
