GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 980, which features a core clock frequency of 1126 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 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 980 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (289%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is a lot (more or less 593%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 123328 (593%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 will be a lot (approximately 593%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 61664 (593%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.