GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 250 1GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be quite a bit (about 51%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16032 (51%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 1GB is the winner, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.