GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 960M, which comes with core clock speeds of 1096 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 960M will be 11% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M will be a lot (about 30%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10240 (30%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be a lot (more or less 83%) better at AA than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7936 (83%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.