GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 660, which has a core clock frequency of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 960 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 660 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 86592 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be much (approximately 277%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 57600 (277%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be a lot (approximately 126%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13120 (126%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 in one second.

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