GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs GeForce 920M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 920M, which comes with GPU clock speed of 954 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is made up of 384 Stream Processors, 32 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 920M should be a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce 920M		14400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 920M will be a lot (more or less 253%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 920M		30528 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21888 (253%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 920M is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 920M		7632 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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