GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 850M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 876 MHz. The DDR3 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 196 Watts (490%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 280 will be 343% faster than the GeForce GTX 850M overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 109696 (343%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be quite a bit (approximately 37%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 850M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13120 (37%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is superior to the GeForce GTX 850M, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5248 (37%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.