GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 960M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1096 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 640 SPUs along with 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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 960M should be just a bit faster than 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 much (approximately 41%) faster with regards to texture 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

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960M is a better choice, by a large margin. (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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.