GeForce 840M vs GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2

Intro

The GeForce 840M features a GPU core speed of 1029 MHz, and the 2048 MB of DDR3 memory is set to run at 1000 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all of that to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, which comes with clock speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 1024 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.