GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Geforce GTX 690

Intro

Compare all of that to the Geforce GTX 690, which features clock speeds of 915 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
Geforce GTX 690		300 Watts
	Difference: 205 Watts (216%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Geforce GTX 690 should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		384512 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 326912 (568%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 should be quite a bit (approximately 1026%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		234240 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 213440 (1026%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 690 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		58560 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 48160 (463%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of 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.