GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 950M, which has a GPU core clock speed of 914 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 950M should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8500 GT in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is quite a bit (approximately 916%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32960 (916%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M should be quite a bit (about 712%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12824 (712%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are 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 higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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