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GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

The GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 550 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 800 MHz on this particular card. It features 96 SPUs along with 48 TAUs and 12 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 660, which comes with GPU core speed of 980 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1502 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 960 Stream Processors, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB 84 Watts
GeForce GTX 660 140 Watts
Difference: 56 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 660 should perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 144192 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB 38400 MB/sec
Difference: 105792 (276%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is a lot (about 197%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 52000 (197%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB 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

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GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB

Amazon.com

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GeForce GTX 660

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB GeForce GTX 660
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year May 2008 September 2012
Code Name G92 GK106
Memory 1536 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 550 MHz 980 MHz
Memory Speed 1600 MHz 6008 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 84 watts 140 watts
Bandwidth 38400 MB/sec 144192 MB/sec
Texel Rate 26400 Mtexels/sec 78400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 6600 Mpixels/sec 23520 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 96 960
Texture Mapping Units 48 80
Render Output Units 12 24
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 192-bit 192-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 28 nm
Transistors 754 million 2540 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11.0
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. 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 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 processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 660

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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