GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 970M, which comes with a core clock frequency of 924 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 970M should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is a lot (approximately 756%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 65280 (756%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be quite a bit (about 927%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 40032 (927%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.