GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce 920M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 920M, which features a core clock speed of 954 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 384 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 920M overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
GeForce 920M		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (56%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 920M is quite a bit (approximately 253%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce 920M		30528 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21888 (253%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 920M is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 920M		7632 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3312 (77%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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, 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 calculated 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 its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.