GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 850M, which has a clock frequency of 876 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB should be 20% faster than the GeForce GTX 850M overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M will be a lot (about 33%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8640 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7416 (112%)

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 moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling 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 card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.