GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce 930M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 930M, which has GPU core speed of 928 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is made up of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 930M in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
GeForce 930M		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (56%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 930M is quite a bit (about 158%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 930M		22272 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13632 (158%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 930M is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 930M		7424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3104 (72%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.