GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 870M, which features GPU clock speed of 941 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 1344 SPUs, 112 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (134%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 870M, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (329%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be a lot (more or less 1120%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 96752 (1120%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be much (approximately 423%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18264 (423%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.