GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 950M, which comes with a clock frequency of 914 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M should be much (about 239%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25760 (239%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M will be much (about 171%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9224 (171%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.