GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 960M, which has a core clock speed of 1096 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

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

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 960M should be much faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (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 much (about 398%) more effective at texture 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

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960M is the winner, by far. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number 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 in one 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. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.