GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 260, which features clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 192 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 28 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 87 Watts (92%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 260 should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 54288 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 should be much (approximately 77%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16064 (77%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 is quite a bit (more or less 55%) better at AA than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5728 (55%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant 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 maximum fill rate.