GeForce 840M vs GeForce 8800 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 112 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 840M		30 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (250%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB should be 260% faster than the GeForce 840M in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 840M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 36%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 840M. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 840M		24696 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8904 (36%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 840M		8232 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1368 (17%)

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 transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.