GeForce 830M vs GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, which uses a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 64 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 830M		25 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (280%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be 300% faster than the GeForce 830M overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 830M		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 43200 (300%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be a lot (more or less 26%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 830M. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 830M		16464 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4336 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB will be much (about 26%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 830M, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 830M		8232 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2168 (26%)

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 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 interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.