GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 970M, which comes with a clock speed of 924 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 970M should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is much (about 180%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47520 (180%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be quite a bit (more or less 572%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 37752 (572%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.