GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 950M, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 914 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, in theory, should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 950M overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is much (approximately 38%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10160 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950M is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8024 (122%)

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 across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface 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 memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.