GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 797 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 1152 SPUs along with 96 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 860M		45 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (111%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 860M should theoretically be a bit better than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be a lot (about 268%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55712 (268%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be a lot (approximately 23%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure 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 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 can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.