GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 950M, which comes with core speeds of 914 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
	Difference: 8 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 950M is 150% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is a lot (more or less 323%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27920 (323%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950M is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10304 (239%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.