GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 860M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 797 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 1152 SPUs along with 96 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 860M, in theory, should perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be quite a bit (more or less 608%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 65712 (608%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be quite a bit (more or less 136%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7352 (136%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.