GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 680, which comes with GPU core speed of 1006 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1502 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1536 Stream Processors, 128 TAUs, and 32 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 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 111 Watts (132%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Geforce GTX 680 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153856 (401%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 will be much (approximately 388%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 102368 (388%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25592 (388%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.