GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 950M, which has GPU core speed of 914 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (91%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 950M in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is a little bit (about 9%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2960 (9%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950M is superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5024 (52%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount 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 processed in a second.

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