GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 950M, which features a core clock frequency of 914 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
	Difference: 8 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 950M should in theory be much better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is quite a bit (more or less 323%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of 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.