GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Geforce GTX 690

Intro

Compare those specs to the Geforce GTX 690, which comes with core clock speeds of 915 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1536 SPUs along with 128 TAUs 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

As far as performance goes, the Geforce GTX 690 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 will be quite a bit (approximately 1026%) faster with regards to AF 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 superior to the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, 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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.