GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 660, which comes with a core clock speed of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also features a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 960 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 660 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is much (about 151%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47200 (151%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be a lot (more or less 126%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.