GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 850M, which features clock speeds of 876 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 2048 MB of DDR3 memory. It features 640 SPUs as well as 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 768MB		84 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB should in theory be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTX 850M in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M is much (about 33%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8640 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.