GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 870M, which comes with a core clock speed of 941 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 192-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1344 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 870M will be 150% quicker than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be quite a bit (more or less 299%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78992 (299%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be much (approximately 242%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.