GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 960M, which has a clock speed of 1096 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 960M should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M will be much (about 407%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (407%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960M is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13216 (306%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.