GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 850M, which features core clock speeds of 876 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 850M, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (43%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M is a lot (about 306%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26400 (306%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9696 (224%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.