GeForce 820M vs GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, which features clock speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 1024 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 820M		15 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (213%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 820M should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce 820M		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 820M is much (more or less 33%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 820M		11504 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2864 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 820M		2876 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1444 (50%)

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 within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.