GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 870M, which has core speeds of 941 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1344 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 870M should in theory be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be a lot (approximately 299%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78992 (299%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be much (more or less 242%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15984 (242%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.