GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 950M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 914 MHz. The DDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (73%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GTX 950M overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M will be a lot (more or less 76%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15760 (76%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M should be a lot (about 41%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4224 (41%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high 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 clock 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.