GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 797 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 1152 SPUs along with 96 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (111%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 860M should in theory perform a small bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be quite a bit (more or less 268%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55712 (268%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be a lot (approximately 23%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2352 (23%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.