GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 850M, which has 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 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 850M should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (43%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M should be quite a bit (approximately 306%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26400 (306%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.