GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 850M, which has GPU clock speed of 876 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (163%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 850M overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (40%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M will be a small bit (more or less 4%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1440 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M should be a lot (about 46%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4416 (46%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.