GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which has core clock speeds of 738 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be a lot (more or less 127%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26432 (127%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be a bit (about 14%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1408 (14%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.