GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 960M, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1096 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 960M should in theory be just a bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be a lot (about 41%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12640 (41%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M will be quite a bit (approximately 69%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7136 (69%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.