GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs GeForce 920M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 920M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 954 MHz. The DDR3 memory works at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular card. It features 384 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 920M will be 13% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 920M		14400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 920M should be a lot (more or less 253%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 920M		30528 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21888 (253%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 920M is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce 920M		7632 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.