GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 950M, which comes with GPU core speed of 914 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
	Difference: 8 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 950M should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is a lot (approximately 323%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27920 (323%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950M is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.