GeForce 940M vs GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, which features core clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 memory. It features 96 SPUs along with 48 TAUs and 12 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should be just a bit (about 3%) better at AF than the GeForce 940M. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 940M		25728 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 672 (3%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 940M is much (more or less 30%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 940M		8576 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1976 (30%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.