GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105792 (276%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is a lot (more or less 197%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52000 (197%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be quite a bit (more or less 256%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB		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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.