GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 970M should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (329%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is a lot (approximately 756%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 65280 (756%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is a lot (more or less 927%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.