GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 870M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 941 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 1344 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 870M should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be quite a bit (approximately 214%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		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, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.