GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 870M, which features GPU core 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 Stream Processors, 112 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 870M should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is quite a bit (more or less 1120%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 96752 (1120%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18264 (423%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.