GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 965M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 965M, which has a clock frequency of 944 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 965M		60 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (58%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 965M should be a little bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M should be quite a bit (more or less 190%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39616 (190%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 965M is superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19808 (190%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.