GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which features a core clock frequency of 797 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1152 SPUs, 96 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 860M should theoretically be a small bit better than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M is much (more or less 145%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45312 (145%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be much (about 23%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.