GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 870M, which comes with a clock frequency of 941 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1344 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 870M should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (114%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be much (approximately 214%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71792 (214%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12984 (135%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This 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 video 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.