GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which features core clock speeds of 797 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1152 SPUs along with 96 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (133%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 860M should in theory be a little bit superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M is much (more or less 128%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42912 (128%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be a lot (about 33%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3152 (33%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.