GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 960M, which features a core clock frequency of 1096 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 960M should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (300%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be quite a bit (approximately 66%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17440 (66%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be a lot (about 166%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10936 (166%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range 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 calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.