GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 860M, which comes with GPU clock speed of 797 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 1152 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (111%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 860M will be 11% faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be quite a bit (more or less 268%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55712 (268%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 860M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2352 (23%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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