GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 850M, which comes with core speeds of 876 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 850M, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (43%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M should be much (more or less 306%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26400 (306%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9696 (224%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.