GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 850M, which has GPU clock speed of 876 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 640 Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 120 Watts (300%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 850M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be a small bit (approximately 8%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 850M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2760 (8%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 850M, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7584 (54%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. 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 get to the max fill rate.