GeForce 940M vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, which uses a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 650 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 64 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 940M in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 940M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (260%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 940M is a lot (about 24%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 940M		25728 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4928 (24%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is superior to the GeForce 940M, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 940M		8576 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1824 (21%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics 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 number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.