GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 660, which features core speeds of 980 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 960 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128192 (801%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be quite a bit (approximately 197%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52000 (197%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be much (approximately 256%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16920 (256%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 reach the maximum fill rate.