GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 960M, which has clock speeds of 1096 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 640 SPUs as well as 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 960M		65 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 960M, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M will be a lot (approximately 407%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 in a second.

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