GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 660 Ti

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 660 Ti, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 915 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this model. It features 1344 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		150 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (58%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		144000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 86400 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti should be a lot (about 393%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		102480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 81680 (393%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		21960 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11560 (111%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 amount of pixels 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 number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.