GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which comes with a clock speed of 797 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1152 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 860M should in theory be a small bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be a lot (about 145%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45312 (145%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be quite a bit (about 23%) better at AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2352 (23%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.