GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 960M, which features GPU clock speed of 1096 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 960M should be much faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (43%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M will be a lot (more or less 30%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10240 (30%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be quite a bit (more or less 83%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7936 (83%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.