GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 960M, which has a clock speed of 1096 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 960M is 186% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (186%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be much (about 407%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (407%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960M is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.