GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 870M, which comes with GPU clock speed of 941 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 1344 SPUs, 112 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 870M will be 114% faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (114%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is much (more or less 214%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71792 (214%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is quite a bit (about 135%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12984 (135%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.