GeForce 930M vs GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, which has GPU core speed of 550 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR2 RAM set to run at 500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 96 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 12 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should theoretically be just a bit superior to the GeForce 930M overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 930M		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 will be a little bit (about 19%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 930M. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 930M		22272 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4128 (19%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 930M is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce 930M		7424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 824 (12%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

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