GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 870M, which has GPU clock speed of 941 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1344 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 870M will be 150% faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be much (about 299%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78992 (299%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be much (approximately 242%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.