GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GTX 980M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 980M, which features core speeds of 1038 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 980M is 233% faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (233%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M will be much (approximately 277%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 73248 (277%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980M is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 59832 (907%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.