GeForce 820M vs GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 550 MHz, and 384 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 800 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is comprised of 96 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 12 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 820M		15 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (460%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 820M in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce 820M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (140%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is much (approximately 129%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 820M. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 820M		11504 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14896 (129%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB is quite a bit (about 129%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 820M, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 820M		2876 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3724 (129%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.