GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 960M, which features a core clock speed of 1096 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (44%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 960M will be 400% quicker than the GeForce 8500 GT in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M is quite a bit (approximately 1118%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40240 (1118%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960M is superior to the GeForce 8500 GT, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15736 (874%)

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 transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 are processed in one second. This 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 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.