GeForce 830M vs GeForce 8600 GTS

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 8600 GTS, which comes with a core clock frequency of 675 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 80 nm design. It is comprised of 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 830M		25 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (200%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8600 GTS should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 830M overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 830M		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 17600 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 830M will be a lot (approximately 52%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce 830M		16464 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5664 (52%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 830M will be quite a bit (more or less 52%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 830M		8232 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2832 (52%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 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 - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.