GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 960M, which features a core clock frequency of 1096 MHz and a GDDR5 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 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 960M, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (186%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M will be quite a bit (more or less 407%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (407%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960M is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13216 (306%)

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 in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.