GeForce GT 230 vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 860M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 797 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 1152 SPUs as well as 96 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (44%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 860M should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 230 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be quite a bit (more or less 769%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67712 (769%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 860M is superior to the GeForce GT 230, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8352 (190%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.