GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 965M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 965M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 944 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 965M		60 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 965M should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M will be quite a bit (approximately 459%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 49616 (459%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 965M is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24808 (459%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill 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.