GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTX 650

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 650, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1058 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1250 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 384 Stream Processors, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 650 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (108%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 should be quite a bit (approximately 28%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7456 (28%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 650 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10328 (156%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 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 processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.