GeForce 810M vs GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, which comes with a clock frequency of 540 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 400 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 80 nm design. It is made up of 32 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 810M		15 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (213%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 810M is 13% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 810M		14400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 will be a lot (more or less 46%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 810M. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 810M		5904 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2736 (46%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 should be a lot (approximately 46%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 810M, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 810M		2952 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1368 (46%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.