GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce 920M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 920M, which comes with a core clock frequency of 954 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 384 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 will be 56% faster than the GeForce 920M overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
GeForce 920M		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (56%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 920M should be a lot (more or less 253%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 920M		30528 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21888 (253%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 920M is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 920M		7632 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3312 (77%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.