GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 850M, which features GPU core speed of 876 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 640 Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB should be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 850M overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M is much (approximately 33%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8640 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7416 (112%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.