GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 850M, which features GPU core speed of 876 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (288%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GTX should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 850M in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 54400 (170%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX is a little bit (about 5%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 850M. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1760 (5%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is superior to the GeForce 8800 GTX, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 216 (2%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed 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 better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.