GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 950M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 914 MHz. The DDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB will be 20% quicker than the GeForce GTX 950M in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M should be quite a bit (about 38%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10160 (38%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M will be much (approximately 122%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8024 (122%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.