GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (111%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 860M should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be much (about 268%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55712 (268%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 860M is superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of 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 ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.