GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 870M, which comes with core clock speeds of 941 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1344 SPUs as well as 112 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 870M should be 150% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be a lot (more or less 299%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78992 (299%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is a lot (more or less 242%) better at AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15984 (242%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.