GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970, which features a core clock frequency of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1664 SPUs, 104 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 970 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (289%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be quite a bit (about 425%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 88400 (425%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is quite a bit (about 546%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 56800 (546%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.