GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 797 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 1152 SPUs as well as 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 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 860M should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be a lot (about 786%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67872 (786%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be quite a bit (about 195%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8432 (195%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on 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.