GeForce 840M vs GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 840M		30 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 17 Watts (57%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 840M should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce 840M		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 840M is much (approximately 186%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce 840M		24696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16056 (186%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 840M will be much (about 91%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 840M		8232 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3912 (91%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.