GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which comes with a core clock frequency of 797 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1152 SPUs, 96 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (87%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 860M should in theory be much better than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (300%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be quite a bit (about 190%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50112 (190%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 860M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6152 (93%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.