GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 960M, which features GPU clock speed of 1096 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 640 Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 960M should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M is a lot (more or less 407%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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

The GeForce GTX 960M should be much (more or less 306%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 ability to get to the maximum fill rate.