GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 950M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 914 MHz. The DDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (64%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB is 80% quicker than the GeForce GTX 950M overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M will be just a bit (more or less 17%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5360 (17%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950M is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.