GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce 940M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 940M, which comes with a core clock speed of 1072 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8600 GTS should be 100% faster than the GeForce 940M overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 940M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 940M will be quite a bit (approximately 138%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 940M		25728 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14928 (138%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 940M is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 940M		8576 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3176 (59%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.