GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 960M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1096 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 960M is 150% quicker than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M is quite a bit (approximately 398%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35040 (398%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M is much (about 299%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13136 (299%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill 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 maximum fill rate.