GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce 940M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 940M, which comes with core clock speeds of 1072 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 2048 MB of DDR3 memory. It features 384 SPUs as well as 24 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, in theory, should perform much faster than the GeForce 940M overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
GeForce 940M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (40%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 940M will be quite a bit (more or less 198%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 940M		25728 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17088 (198%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 940M is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 940M		8576 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4256 (99%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.