GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 940M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 940M, which features a core clock frequency of 1072 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 384 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 940M should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce 940M		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 940M is much (more or less 198%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 940M		25728 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17088 (198%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 940M should be much (about 99%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 940M		8576 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the 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 ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.